


beside me like sisyphus

by getmean



Series: lesson / confession / i need you be near me [2]
Category: The Pacific (TV)
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Domesticity, Hurt/Comfort, Introspection, Living Together, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Miscommunication, Period Typical Attitudes, Post-Canon, Sequel, Uncertainty, insomniac messes with too much furniture and bad attitudes in their own way, street cats taking a shine to eugene, typical hoarder behaviour from snafu
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-08
Updated: 2018-06-08
Packaged: 2019-03-28 11:01:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 28,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13902648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/getmean/pseuds/getmean
Summary: Snafu, he was still a jagged edge, nerves raw and open and stinging under the salt of the bay. Uncomfortable, with his hunched shoulders and darting eyes, in a way that was almost nauseatingly familiar. Eugene touched his pinky finger to the back of Snafu’s hand, the two of them sat knee to knee, hip to hip, shoulder to shoulder, facing the sea. Snafu’s mouth lifted in a smile, and he caught Eugene’s finger in his hand before he could move it away.“Penny for them.” He murmured, and Eugene thought of the Alabama sun, of talk of death and war.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> sequel to 'i'm the diode, you're the kerosene', because i couldn't stop myself thinking about their cosily dysfunctional life out west
> 
> i'll be updating weekly on fridays, and i'd read the preceding fic just to make sure you get the nuances of their dynamic :^)

The main thing about California was the heat. Not that Eugene wasn’t used to a little heat, no, Alabama summers were something to be reckoned with and after the Pacific he never yearned for a hot summer again. California heat was just different; gritty, dry heat, the taste of the desert in your mouth, around the backs of your molars. On a really hot day in Alabama, the days in which Eugene’s mother stayed inside in the cool shade of the house, the air was so thick it felt like you were drinking it, rather than breathing. California heat made his skin feel tight, a heat unlike home and unlike war - unlike anything, really.

There was the heat, and then there was Snafu.

In the two years Eugene had been attending Berkeley, he’d gotten pretty used to the place. Even the heat, even the streetcars and the bustle and the strange West Coast culture. He’d stuck out like a sore thumb at first, his red hair and his accent and the way he couldn’t stand the press of people, but he’d smoothed out into something a little more comfortable in the flow of it all. Like sea glass and the irrevocable wash of the sea. It was an easy rhythm that made it seem like a home away from home, a place where the war couldn’t touch him just as how the careful gazes of his parents couldn’t. San Francisco didn’t know war like he knew war, it didn’t know what it was like to feel entombed in rain and mud and sickness, and it glowed in the sun unlike Mobile ever had, after. Somehow, Eugene could take lungfuls of the sea air and not think about the warring smells of brine and blood that had greeted him on Peleliu.

But Snafu, he was still a jagged edge, nerves raw and open and stinging under the salt of the bay. Uncomfortable, with his hunched shoulders and darting eyes, in a way that was almost nauseatingly familiar. Eugene touched his pinky finger to the back of Snafu’s hand, the two of them sat knee to knee, hip to hip, shoulder to shoulder, facing the sea. Snafu’s mouth lifted in a smile, and he caught Eugene’s finger in his hand before he could move it away.

“Penny for them.” He murmured, and Eugene thought of the Alabama sun, of talk of death and war. Snafu’s eyes were amused in his face, and when Eugene tugged his finger from his grasp he made a noise of mock-affront. “Hey!”

“You like it here?” Eugene asked, and Snafu gave him a look like he was crazy, brow all scrunched up. Eugene turned his gaze away to the sea, watched it break oblivious on the sand.

“Why d’you ask?” He said, instead of an answer. “You think I don’t?”

“I think you wouldn’t tell me if you didn’t.” Eugene said flatly, and Snafu scoffed. Eugene didn’t have to look to know he was rolling his eyes. 

The sea breeze raised goosebumps on his skin, the weather getting as cool as it ever would as the seasons dipped into October. Still warm, less of that punch of desert dryness behind it. Eugene pressed his fingers to his lips, eyes squinted against the glare of the shallow sun as he tilted his head to face Snafu. His big, pale eyes flicked up to meet Eugene’s, and after a moment his gaze softened. He extended a hand, touched his knuckle to the outside of Eugene’s leg before spreading his fingers over his thigh. “Anywhere with you is where I wanna be, boo.” His fingertips felt like burning, pressed against the inseam of Eugene’s pants, and Eugene breathed out slow.

“You sure?” He asked, because Snafu had made a life of deflecting questions and because Eugene knew sometimes things had to be drawn out of him, like poison from a wound.

“Sure.” Snafu said, and the corner of his mouth curled upwards in a smile. He squeezed Eugene’s thigh, teasing with just how much Eugene would let him get away with. “I got you all to myself, who wouldn’t be happy with that?”

 _It’s about more than that_ , Eugene wanted to say, but kept his mouth shut. They watched the sea together, and Eugene watched the breeze tousle at Snafu’s curls and thought, _are you happy with anything?_

\-----

Their apartment was just outside of the Richmond District, little more than a room on some sweltering second floor of a pretty, lopsided house. There were window boxes, where Snafu grew herbs for cooking, and bright little flowers. Eugene would’ve laughed for days if someone had told him, years ago, that he’d be sitting in their bright, sunny shared apartment one day watching Snafu prune dead heads off of plants. But it suited him, in some odd way that Eugene put down to a gut feeling over any real evidence. His hands were made for gentleness after all, it seemed.

Snafu had an addiction to picking up the ugliest, mismatched furniture from junk stores. An old armoire with a busted door that barely fit in the room, a cheap, flimsy little table he kept his ashtray on and knocked over once a week, countless odd little tchotchkes and cheap rugs and throws. Their apartment was cluttered with it, and it was surprising how it somehow didn’t feel claustrophobic, since Eugene was so used to the almost museum-like neatness of his parents’ home. In the late evenings, their room would be lit yellow from the waning sun and Eugene would wonder if this was how the rest of his life was meant to go. Curled around Snafu on a big, creaky old sofa he’d appropriated from the curb, probably, Eugene didn’t want to know. Snafu’s hands in hair as he smoked and as Eugene read, the air heavy with the smell of it, the smoke hanging like a veil in the still air. It felt so far from Alabama, from the war, that sometimes Eugene forgot about it all for a second. Normally when Snafu was kissing him, or grinning so hard his eyes wrinkled, or when he came home with a new acquisition that they didn’t need but made Eugene feel more situated in their space.

“You’re nesting.” He muttered, one bright morning. He was getting ready for class, ironing a shirt as he watched Snafu mess around with an old clock he’d picked up. Its guts were strewn all across the table, and Snafu was cursing as he looked at it this way and that, squinting.

“Fuck off.” He murmured, not glancing up, and Eugene laughed.

“What? It’s true.” He picked his shirt up and shook it out, Snafu’s eyes on him as he slipped it on over his undershirt. “Nobody needs all this junk, ‘s why it’s in the store in the first place.” 

“Just ‘cus someone’s thrown it away don’t mean it’s useless.” Snafu retorted, before abandoning his broken clock to cross the room to Eugene’s side. “Here, sugar.” He mumbled, and straightened out Eugene’s collar for him. Eugene studied him, took in the dark bruises under his eyes, his three-day stubble. _Are you happy with anything?_ His mouth felt sealed shut with the emotion welling in his throat.

“Thanks.” Eugene said, quiet, and caught Snafu by the wrist as he turned to go. “Are you okay?” He smoothed his hands over Snafu’s shoulders, touched both thumbs to either side of his throat, gentle. 

Snafu kissed him instead of answering, pliant and sunlit in their little kitchen. When his hand came up to cup Eugene’s jaw, his fingertips smelt like pennies from the clock. Eugene felt dizzy with the nameless pressure in his chest. _I brought him here,_ he thought, as Snafu made a small, helpless noise against his mouth, _I brought him here._ He broke away, and Snafu followed him lazily, nuzzled his nose into his cheek.

“I was thinking about getting a cat.” Snafu murmured, that slow creeping drawl. “Or two.” His hand on Eugene’s waist was warm, and Eugene thought about the smell of pennies, metal and blood and the bouncing stock of a carbine against the sheath of a kabar. It was a similar noise to the tread of feet on floorboards, when a mind was half asleep. Snafu had been having waking nightmares more, lately. _I brought him here_ , Eugene thought, again.

“Anything.” Eugene said, too quick, and Snafu leaned back, narrowed his eyes. “Why a cat?”

“Two cats.” Snafu said, pedantic as always. “One each.”

“Alright,” Eugene said patiently. “Why _two_ cats?”

Snafu regarded him for a long moment, big, tired eyes flitting from his eyes, to his mouth, reading him. “Maybe it’s because I’m _nesting_.” He said, and the quirk at the corner of his mouth was mocking. Eugene scowled and turned away, crossed through to their bedroom to gather his bookbag, his jacket. Snafu followed, hands deep in his pockets as he watched Eugene move around the room. “You got something to say?” He asked, that indifferent drawl grating on Eugene’s suddenly fried nerves. 

“You’ve always gotta treat everything like a goddamn joke.” He snapped, his back to Snafu and eyes unseeing on the cover of the textbook he’d picked up. “You’re unhappy and you won’t tell me why.”

There was a moment of long, tense silence then, which Snafu eventually broke with: “Is this about the cats?”

He was grinning when Eugene shoved past him for the door, hands held up against his chest in mocking defeat. “Steady on, Sledgehammer.” He murmured, lips quirked in that mocking smile Eugene _hated_. “Don’t go to school angry, baby.”

Eugene slammed the door shut behind him, the conversation abandoned. 

He never stayed mad for long, it just wasn’t his nature, and Snafu never really _got_ mad. Eugene discovered a sloppily made sandwich in his satchel a couple hours later, carefully wrapped in butcher’s paper, and felt a pulse of love so strong that he had to just sit back and feel it. 

“You finally tied down a girl, Eugene?” His classmate asked, and nodded towards the sandwich that Eugene was holding in his hand. He felt himself flush warm and ducked his head, an image of Snafu pink cheeked and open mouthed under him flashing unbidden through his mind. 

“Something like that.” He said, and endured the congratulatory slap on the back as penance for something he couldn’t name.

Snafu didn’t look up when he came home, so Eugene discarded his bag and his shoes by the door to pad over to where he sat, smoking and silent on the sofa. His curls were soft when Eugene twisted his fingers into his hair, which meant that he’d showered, finally. He tilted his head into the touch like a cat, ash falling into his lap as he shifted. Eyes closed, purple bruises, mean mouth pliant and quiet for once. Eugene pressed a kiss to his forehead, upside down so his nose brushed Snafu’s. Sometimes love could be felt behind your eyes, your breastbone, the thin skin of your throat. Eugene was drowned in it.

“Cats would be nice.” He murmured, and Snafu reached back to curl a hand into his hair. Eugene went willingly, pressed his nose to Snafu’s temple and closed his eyes. “Gonna get them from the junk store?”

Snafu snorted. “They’re gonna be purebred. Prettiest cats on the block.”

“Sure.” Eugene said, pressed a kiss to the curve of Snafu’s cheekbone before straightening up. “Purebred cats with what money?”

“I’m gonna get a job.” Snafu said, leaning forward to crush his cigarette out in the ashtray. Eugene tried to school his expression into something a little less surprised as Snafu glanced his way. He obviously didn’t do a very good job, because Snafu’s mouth twisted, defensive. “What?”

“Nothing.” Eugene murmured, turning away to fill himself a glass of water. He leaned back against the counter as he drank it, watched as Snafu stood and crossed the small space to crowd him against the sink. 

“I gotta pull my weight.” Snafu said, voice low. His faced was downturned, watching his hand as he skimmed it along Eugene’s side. His skin prickled pleasantly, and he set the glass down with an air of finality that Snafu picked up on. His gaze sharpened. “There’s a job going downtown at a garage.”

“Think you’ll get it?” Eugene asked, touching his thumb to the corner of Snafu’s mouth. 

“Yeah, I’m good at that stuff.”

He was. Eugene thought of the long, liminal hours they spent fishing over the summer, Snafu’s deft hands tying hooks onto lines like it was second nature. The clock he’d been fussing over that morning was ticking on the table now, and Eugene thought of those same hands sighting their mortar, digging foxholes, firing a rifle. 

“Well,” Eugene murmured, urging him closer with a touch behind his ear. “Don’t spend all that money at once.”

Snafu pressed his lips to Eugene’s jaw, his nose, his cheek. Peppering every place he could with kisses as his hand snaked from Eugene’s waist to the front of his pants. Eugene’s skin felt tight, a size too small with the anticipation of the _before_.

“Right here?” He breathed, and Snafu huffed out a laugh in his ear as his hands made quick work of Eugene’s belt and fly.

“Missed you.” He murmured, a grin tipping his mouth lopsided as he leaned back a little to see Eugene’s expression. “I missed you, sugar.” His eyes were soft, and he kissed Eugene for real then as he freed Eugene’s cock from his underwear.

“I just got home.” Eugene insisted, even as his hips pushed into Snafu’s touch. He didn’t have to look to know Snafu was still grinning, smug. There was something taboo about doing it in the kitchen, the place they welcomed guests, with the wide windows and the bright, clean light. His hands gripped the edge of the sink, practically white knuckled. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever get used to how casually Snafu initiated sex, like it was _normal_.

“Gotta de-stress after a long day of being boring.” Snafu murmured, voice dropping as he stroked Eugene to full hardness. “You gonna let me take care of you?”

“I haven’t-” Eugene began, and Snafu dropped to his knees, a hard thump to the linoleum and Eugene swallowed. “Fuck.”

Snafu’s breath was hot on the head of his cock, fleeting before he sucked it into his mouth. Eugene groaned at the first touch of the wet heat of his mouth, gripped harder onto the counter to stay upright as Snafu swallowed down around him. Eugene still remembered the first time he’d done this, remembered the giddy arousal that had built in his stomach so fast, the fact that he enjoyed how Snafu knew exactly what he was doing. That hadn’t faded, but there was a bruise of jealousy to it now, a kind of envy that made Eugene reach down to grab Snafu by his hair and pull him ever closer. Snafu blinked up at him, eyes watery and adoring, and Eugene swiped his thumb over his stretched lips, murmured, “Good boy.”

Snafu shivered, a full body thing, and dropped his eyes down as he got to work. Eugene dropped his head back, stared at the ceiling as he lost himself to the feel of Snafu’s mouth, his throat, the way he pressed Eugene back against the kitchen cabinets with those strong, worker’s hands. _Their_ cabinets, _their_ kitchen, and for some reason Eugene got lost in that, the fact that they’d done it, they’d made it through everything and finally had a place to call their own. 

“I love you.” Eugene whispered into the still air, and Snafu moaned around his cock, pressed him harder against the cabinet as he swallowed him down impossibly deep. It took all Eugene had not to press further into that wet heat; he was shuddering, sweating with it. His fingers carded through Snafu’s curls, wanting him somehow closer. He wanted to keep him to himself, just for Eugene and no one else. No comments from his classmates, just Snafu at home loving and _there_. 

He came with a moan, not able to help himself from pressing his cock forward into Snafu’s throat. He choked on it, but Eugene knew he liked to be choked so he kept it up, came hot down Snafu’s throat until he was shuddering oversensitive through the aftershocks.

“Shit,” He breathed, “Snafu, goddamn.”

Snafu pressed the back of his wrist to his mouth, almost dainty, and then grinned. “Yeah?” He murmured, “You liked that?” His voice was _shot_ , and Eugene shivered, helped him up with a hand in his. He was hard, the front of the boxers he’d been lounging around in tented, and when he came upright he kissed Eugene hard and deep.

“You want?” Eugene asked, and Snafu just shook his head. His eyes were heavy lidded, like he’d already got his, and Eugene felt drunk off of that alone.

“I’m good.” He murmured, raspy. “Hey,” He said, pressing his nose to Eugene’s throat. “Let’s go to a bar tonight.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! comments are always appreciated, lemme know how you like the sequel so far :^)
> 
> title, chapter titles, and collection name from alcohol by sisyphus
> 
> also disclaimer i have literally never been not dissociating while on the west coast also i've only been there over summer so if my winter predictions are wrong: i'm british, let me off


	2. Chapter 2

Bar nights always meant Snafu was in a good mood. Bar nights meant a trek to the Castro, the two of them standing hip to hip in some neon washed bar until the liquor loosened Eugene up enough to let Snafu sit in his lap. It meant worrying about a headache the next day until Snafu took his face in his too-hot sweaty-palmed hands and kissed him.

Bar nights meant an uneasy sort of anxiety in Eugene’s stomach that could only be quelled by liquor and darkness. The year was 1952, Eugene would have to be an idiot not to be anxious. But here, in San Francisco, in company, under Snafu’s knowledgeable and distinctly nonchalant tutelage: it worked where it couldn’t have worked anywhere else. 

Snafu tasted like bottom shelf bourbon when he kissed him, because you couldn’t take the South from the boy, and Eugene could feel himself flushed all over from it. Sometimes the anxiety won out over everything else, _sometimes_. Other nights it was giddy happiness lit bright inside his chest from the ability to be who he so unmistakably _was _. Eugene hoped that being able to kiss Snafu’s dear, stubbly cheek in public would never lose its charm.__

__“Dance?” Snafu yelled over the music, and when he grabbed Eugene’s wrist his hand was cold and clammy from the condensation on the outside of his recently poured and downed drink. The apples of his cheeks were pink, a grin slapped sloppy across his face, and Eugene felt his heart yearn towards him like it was a separate part of him._ _

__Sometimes Snafu locked himself in the bathrooms of the bar all night because he couldn’t handle the press of people, the noise, the lights. Eugene wouldn’t even be able to get him to leave, those nights, because the nightmare of getting back through the crowd was worse than panicking in a tiny cubicle alone. Eugene would spend his night attempting to get Snafu to let him in, to no avail. It normally culminated in a deadened, weary cab ride home that left Snafu clinging to the walls of the apartment and Eugene short on cash for a week._ _

__But tonight, _tonight_ was different. Snafu, two left feet but plenty of drunken enthusiasm to make up for it, pale eyed and drenched in neon light flashing green, blue, red, green. Thin waist under Eugene’s hands, wiry and small pressed against his front. _This_ , Eugene thought, as Snafu pressed his nose to his throat, _this is what cancel the bad nights out.__ _

__They shared a cigarette outside, later. Sweat was drying chilly in the small of Eugene’s back, the hollow of his throat. He’d been trying to quit smoking, pipe and all, but couldn’t help the impulse whenever he drank. He took a drag, glanced sidelong at Snafu’s profile._ _

__“You seem like you’re in a good mood.” He commented, threw it out there into the night because fuck it why not. Because he was drunk and Snafu was smiling for the first time in weeks and his guilt was ebbing. Because he wanted to take Snafu home and fuck him but he needed to know that his mood was real and not a show._ _

__Snafu pinched his cigarette back, the corner of his mouth pulled into a lazy smile. “S’pose I am.” He said, words a little slurred. He took a drag, and Eugene watched his face for any telltale signs of a lie. “Nothing like gettin’ your life on track, huh?”_ _

__“There’s a first time for everything.” Eugene quipped, and Snafu tipped his head back against the wall of the club’s alley and laughed._ _

__“Shit,” Snafu slitted his eyes at him, considering. “Tying down a classy Southern belle like you ain’t gettin’ my life on track enough? Winning the war?”_ _

__Eugene hated and loved when Snafu called him that in equal measures. “Quiet down.” He muttered, but smiled to himself when Snafu crept closer to press his shoulder to Eugene’s arm. They shared the rest of the cigarette in silence, and it was only after Snafu ground it out under his shoe and moved to go back into the bar did Eugene say, “You’re happy?” His voice was too soft for it to be playful teasing. He was too drunk for it to not be weighty._ _

__Snafu held his gaze for what seemed like an age, those eerie eyes ghostly through the darkness of the alley. Eugene watched several emotions flicker over his face, and then he grinned, shrugged. “Sure,” He said, easily, dropping his eyelids and tilting his chin up. “Why wouldn’t I be?”_ _

__He moved back into the bar, and Eugene followed him because that was what Eugene did and what he always will do. Afterwards, they headed home and they didn’t have sex. Snafu spent the night awake and smoking on the couch, a horrible sagging thing he’d picked up somewhere, and Eugene spent the night awake and waiting for him. When he finally drifted off the room was grey with dawn, the faint sounds of the morning news on the wireless lulling him into a doze._ _

__When he woke, Snafu was asleep next to him and the hollows of his eyes were so dark they looked bruised. Eugene watched him breathe for a while, that guilt curdling in his stomach again until he could practically taste it. Was it unfair for him to ask him that last night? When Snafu was off guard and drunk enough that he _might_ have given him a straight answer. It had certainly been less like trying to draw blood from a stone to get Snafu to talk back in Alabama. But then, Snafu had had the upper hand there._ _

__Snafu snorted in his sleep, rolled over so his back was facing Eugene. He counted Snafu’s vertebrae, slow and methodical as his mind ticked over. He was missing class. He didn’t care._ _

__What had gone wrong?_ _

__“Snafu.” He breathed, and touched his hand to Snafu’s skinny, bare ribcage. Snafu came awake all at once, and Eugene didn’t miss the twitch of his hands toward the stock of a rifle that hadn’t been there for years. Snafu’s hands closed on empty air, and Eugene watched as his eyes refocused, took in the off-white walls of their bedroom, the sunlight, Eugene._ _

__“Gene.” He muttered, voice sleep shot and barely there. He squinted in the slanting morning sunlight, and Eugene felt suddenly sorry for waking him. He looked horrible: pale and drawn and puffy around the eyes. “Jesus.” He flopped back onto the bed, pulling the sheets with him until Eugene found himself bare to the chill of the room. “Stop wakin’ me like that.”_ _

__“Snafu.” He said again, because if he let Snafu be a brat then that’d be it. “I’m sorry.”_ _

__“For what.” Snafu said, little inflection in his voice. The line of his shoulders was tense, despite his act of being ready to fall back asleep._ _

__Eugene found himself stumped. For what, exactly, _was_ he sorry for? Coming back into Snafu’s life? No, he’d done that himself, showing up tired and thin on Eugene’s doorstep like a damn stray. But it had all led from that, right? Snafu was taking the move harder than Eugene had ever thought he would, back on that warm August night in Mobile. Truthfully, Eugene had never thought he’d take it any way at all: Snafu seemed untethered from any sense of home or place of belonging, and had done for as long as Eugene had known him. But perhaps that was the problem, that he’d never known whoever Snafu had been before the war._ _

__“I’m not sure.” He said, finally, and Snafu grunted._ _

__“Well,” He said, and rolled onto his back, throwing his arms over his head in the process and groaning as he stretched. “Thanks for wakin’ me up for that.”_ _

__Eugene pressed his thumb to the knot of scar tissue on Snafu’s shoulder. “I just don’t know how to say it.” He said, quiet, and Snafu turned his head to watch Eugene stroke circles over the scar._ _

__“Just out with it.” He murmured, and touched his fingertips to Eugene’s thigh, bent and pressed against Snafu’s hip._ _

__“You don’t sleep here.” Eugene said, quickly and quiet like a secret. Snafu’s eyes lifted from the slow circles Eugene was making over his scar, pale and wary. “Not until it’s light out.”_ _

__Snafu said nothing for a long time, not until Eugene moved to take his hand, held it close to his face to kiss his knuckles. Then, Snafu sighed and turned his face, eyes unfocused and far away. He didn’t tug his hand away, though. Eugene tested the pad of his index finger with his teeth, and Snafu’s mouth tilted in a smile. “Don’t feel safe here.” Snafu said, eventually, eyes still fixed on the shapes the sun made through the blinds on the wall. Shifting, hazy, low autumn morning light. Eugene could feel his heart in his chest like a stone. “It’s like,” He seemed to be digging around for words, and again Eugene felt guilty. Snafu had never been a great communicator, and here Eugene was trying to drag something out of him that he’d evidently been keeping quiet for a while now, all before Snafu had even had his morning smoke. “It’s like, when you wake up in a new place an’ for a second your brain is someplace else, only it feels like that all the time.”_ _

__Eugene tried to keep emotion off his face. “You’re having flashbacks?”_ _

__Snafu shook his head and moved to sit against the headboard, sitting up and dislodging Eugene from his side in one nervous movement. He rolled his shoulders, grimaced like he could feel something there. “Nah.” He lit a cigarette from a pack shoved into the nightstand, smoked half of it down before he said. “Just don’t feel right.”_ _

__An ambulance wailed past outside, and wordlessly, Snafu handed his cigarette to Eugene. “Thanks.” They were stale, probably weeks old, and Eugene couldn’t help but pull a face as he took a drag._ _

__When Snafu spoke again, his voice was low, morose. “It’ll get easier once I’m out the house. Can’t stop jumpin’ at goddamn shadows when I’m here alone.”_ _

__The thought of that was unpleasant, and Eugene knew he hadn’t been able to hide the pity on his face in time as Snafu’s face hardened. He turned away, face to the mid-morning sun, and Eugene watched as smoke curled lazily from his mouth. Snafu, in his usual laconic way, had said everything Eugene had needed to hear. _Are you happy here?_ Snafu twisted to ash in the tray on the side table, and Eugene watched his skin stretch taut over his ribs with the movement. _No. Never. You did this to me._ Eugene wanted to apologise, for the apartment, for San Francisco, for his long days in class and for the barely scabbing wound of the war on both of them._ _

__“It’s the bridge.” Snafu said, suddenly, “That goddamn bridge.”_ _

__Eugene, mind half in the mire of war and half pulled in whatever direction Snafu was now taking them, frowned. “What?”_ _

__“That godawful,” Snafu gestured with his cigarette, a broad swoop of one bony wrist, a fluttering of loose ash. “ _Bridge_.”_ _

__It dawned on Eugene all at once, the _bridge_. The boat ride under it, the nerves and anticipation and pride welling up in his chest so high he felt like he might vomit. The looming metal legs and the cold expanse of the Pacific Ocean. On the other side lay hunger and fear and violence and death. Worse: the unknown. _ _

__In grade school he’d learned that the bridge wasn’t red at all, but orange. Orange, like a warning, like a deadly insect. He didn’t find it hard to believe that it haunted Snafu’s memories. He didn’t know what to say._ _

__“Snafu-” He began, and then stopped himself. Snafu watched him from the corner of his eye, wary like a cornered animal. “I’m sorry.”_ _

__Snafu rolled his eyes, stubbed out his cigarette. “Ain’t nothin’ you did.” He muttered, and stretched out his arm: an invite for Eugene to curl into his side. His skin was warm in the chilly room, and the smell of him the morning after a drunken night was familiar, vaguely welcoming. Tobacco and sweat, the smell of sleep warm skin. Eugene kissed his throat, his jaw, pressed his nose to his cheek._ _

__“Don’t like seeing you hurting, s’all.” He murmured, and felt Snafu shrug._ _

__“You know I don’t hurt for long, boo.”_ _

__Eugene felt Snafu’s hand settle into his hair, an air of finality in his light touch. Eugene kept his mouth shut about the barefaced lie of it all, because if he knew anything about Snafu it was that he was hurting and had been for so long that he’d tuned it out. Buried the old hurt with new pain, blamed it on war and grief and nightmares and not the whole long hard life before. It was easy, Eugene supposed, and lay tucked into Snafu side as he smoked another cigarette and thought hard about grief, and family, and guilt, the sickly pull of succumbing to sadness and the feeling like water closing over your head._ _

__“Let’s get coffee.” Snafu said, and because Eugene was missing class already, because he was worried and guilty and hopelessly in love, he agreed._ _

__The place was three blocks over, a favourite haunt of Snafu’s where the waitresses were charmed by his Southern drawl and knew his name. The coffee was thick and black like tar, always leaving Eugene uncomfortably caffeinated, but the thrill of seeing Snafu outdoors and smiling overpowered even that. Under the table, Snafu bumped his knee against Eugene’s, held it there for a minute as he met his eye over the lip of his mug. The sun lit the curve of his cheekbone, his brow, light as a kiss, and Eugene knew then that he’d do anything to make him feel safe. Even if he never slept in their bed again, even if he was somber and morose six days out of the week. Eugene would pull him out time and time again, no matter how many times the water closed over his head and no matter how much Snafu might hate him for it._ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading!!


	3. Chapter 3

Snafu started work at the garage the next week, and came home filthy and smiling and smelling like oil, black under his fingernails. Eugene kissed him pliant against the kitchen counter, took him in the shower and scrubbed him clean and sucked him off. It was a good day, and it lit a small burn of hope in Eugene’s chest that he refused to put out.

Towel over his head, skin slick with water, Snafu said, “This place is startin’ to feel more like home.” He pulled the towel off and slung it around his shoulders, pushed rubbed-damp curls back from his forehead. “‘S good to get my hands in somethin’ again.”

“Feel like someplace safe?” Eugene prompted, and Snafu shrugged one shoulder, rubbed the back of his neck.

“Maybe.” He said, eyes on the tile floor. “Dunno.”

Eugene knew he hadn’t felt safe in Alabama, not under the gazes of Eugene’s parents, not with Eugene’s nightmares. It was hard to think of a place where they could just exist as the two of them, a little bubble of quietness and calm. Eugene didn’t have the nerves for crowds like he used to, and Snafu didn’t have the nerves for much either - he was just better at hiding it. Or ignoring it, pressing it down. Either way, safety was some amorphous concept that Eugene couldn’t quite put his finger on.

Snafu cooked for them that night, humming along to the wireless as he deftly seared chicken on the stove of their cosy kitchen. It was still a continual surprise that Snafu could cook, one that Eugene hoped he never got tired of. His own weak attempts at conciliatory breakfasts and budget dinners paled in comparison.

“You still planning on the cats?” Eugene asked from his perch on the counter, watching Snafu pour himself a neat measure of whiskey. “Me too.” He added, touching Snafu’s wrist as he moved to put the bottle away. He smirked, that familiar twist of his mouth, and Eugene felt his heart lift a little. 

“Course I am.” Snafu said, like Eugene was stupid for even mentioning it. He slid the glass of whiskey his way, and when Eugene leaned forward to get it he surprised him with a kiss. “Hey.” Snafu mumbled, fingertips coming to rest on Eugene’s jaw, to coax his face closer. “I love you.”

Eugene felt giddy with it, the love. Like it flowed from his pores, like anyone would be able to tell just by looking at him. Their little kitchen, the mismatched glasses and pots and pans, the smell of cooking food and Snafu so open and _happy_. It all came together to slap a stupid smile on Eugene’s face, make him lean into the press of Snafu’s mouth as they traded kisses until the chicken started to catch.

“You’re gonna ruin it.” Eugene muttered, and Snafu snorted and pushed him away. 

“‘S all your fault.” He shot back, a smile in his voice as he turned the heat down. “Drink your drink.”

“So the cats,” Eugene said, and took a sip of his whiskey. Snafu was watching him, that heavy gaze. “Misplaced affection for the children we’ll never have?”

“Never say never.” Snafu murmured, nudging Eugene’s knee with his elbow. Wordlessly, Eugene fetched two plates from the hutch by his head, handed them to Snafu. “But the cats will do for now.”

Eugene smiled to himself, ducked his head to Snafu wouldn’t catch it.

The week settled into something that was the closest to a comfortable monotony that they’d had since Snafu had moved in. Snafu enjoyed his job, enjoyed the manual labour of it all: getting his hands dirty and inside the body of something metal.

“It just makes sense.” He’d said, simply. Tousled and sleep-creased and barely awake over a cup of coffee, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet because the tile floor was just so cold. He’d left the window open all night, hoping to coax in a stray cat he’d spotted. Eugene closed it, too pleased that Snafu was awake before noon to be annoyed. 

Sometimes, Eugene brought him lunch. If he had an afternoon off from class, he’d walk down to the garage a few blocks over and take the time to watch Snafu do what he did best. Back during the war, their past life, Eugene had always been captivated by Snafu’s hands. Well before he had any feelings for him, before he was anything more than the strange, almost feral man in his company. Snafu was, by all accounts, somewhat unreliable until he got his hands on something he was _good_ at. Skinny wrists and big square hands, surprisingly deft fingers, quick and smart when he needed to be. It was good to see him at it again, good to see him out of the house and speaking to people and talking about the future again.

Plus, it was always gratifying to see Snafu covered in oil and grease, petrol blue boiler suit unbuttoned to his sternum, the sun glancing off that dime around his neck.

“I guess it makes sense like joining the Marines made sense.” Snafu continued, scratching at he centre of his chest as he gazed off into the middle distance. Eugene flipped a piece of bacon in the pan, waited silently for him to finish. Snafu’s thoughts were a maze sometimes. “You play to your strengths, right?” 

Eugene said nothing, because it hurt to think about the war that day, that week. Snafu didn’t expand on it, but wrapped his arm around Eugene’s waist and pressed his lips to his shoulder before he passed to get dressed. 

His kiss lingered for the rest of the day, kept Eugene’s head on straight despite whatever his mind was attempting to dredge up.

“Do you think we’ll ever forget?” He asked, that evening in bed. Snafu’s lips at the little fold of fat below his navel. His hand was thrown over his head, and he scratched his nails at the headboard aimlessly. Time had been moving disjointedly.

“No.” Snafu mumbled, eyes closed as he nuzzled his face into Eugene’s stomach. “Don't have to. Don’t wanna.”

Eugene closed his eyes as Snafu’s ticklish-light kisses moved to his sternum. “Why?”

“Makes me _me_.” Snafu said simply, voice closer now. He still smelled like the garage, heady gasoline and iron gritty in his hair. “Wouldn’t change a thing.”

Eugene slitted his eyes half open, leveled Snafu with a disbelieving look. “Nothing?” His waking nightmares hung unspoken between them. He’d had one only the other day, after waking up to the bang of Eugene dropping a pan on their tile kitchen floor. His big eyes were rimmed with red from sleepless nights. 

Snafu shrugged and ducked his head to kiss Eugene’s chest. “Nah. Life’s all about the experiences, huh?” His fingers wormed their way under Eugene’s torso, cold between the bedsheets and his skin. “Good and bad.”

“It was pretty _bad_.” Eugene murmured doubtfully, tipping his chin back as Snafu began to kiss his way along the line of his throat. “Lord, you stink.”

“You like it.” Snafu said, and Eugene grumbled in response. He did. He hated that Snafu knew all his weak spots. “All bad things get buried under other things soon enough.”

Eugene thought of Snafu’s face on that morning he’d woken him up, bloodless, exhausted, terrified. He’d been shaking, Eugene remembered, so hard that he could barely hold the glass of water Eugene gave him as he began to come back to himself. “You think?” He asked, and Snafu hummed. “How long?”

Snafu laughed, squeezed Eugene’s side. “A year.” He said. “Ten, twenty. Fuck if I know, Gene.” That slow, deliberate drawl. “Does it matter?”

“It feels bad.” Eugene said, quiet, and Snafu blinked at him.

“It feels bad _now_.” Snafu said, propping himself up on one elbow to look at him. “Did it feel bad yesterday? Last week?”

“Yes.” Eugene said, voice small. His jaw hurt from clenching his teeth. “It’s everything.”

The humour left Snafu’s face, and he suddenly looked so tired Eugene could barely believe he slept at all. “Yeah.” He muttered, and ducked his head to kiss Eugene’s forehead. “‘For sure feels like that.” He moved to lie down by Eugene, who took the opportunity to catch hold of the old dime strung around Snafu’s neck. It was as much his charm as Snafu’s, these days. He rubbed his thumb over the worn down lettering, closed his eyes and thought, _it’s over, it’s over, it’s over._

Everything felt ridiculous and unnecessary after war. Everything lost meaning. While Snafu had began to come out of the fog he’d been shrouded in since they had arrived on the West Coast, Eugene could feel himself sinking back into it. 

“You need’ta eat.” Snafu said from the doorway, days later. Eugene just pulled the covers over his head. Snafu flipped the light switch on, then off, then on again, until Eugene threw back the sheet with a groan. 

“Cut it out, Snafu.” He snapped, hating the lazily indifferent set of Snafu’s face. Carefully careless. “I’m not hungry.”

“You been in the same place since I left for work.” He retorted, shifting his weight as he leaned his shoulder against the doorframe. “I’m gonna make you dinner.”

“I’m not gonna eat it.” Eugene muttered, childishly petulant as he watched Snafu’s jaw set hard in the low light. He hadn’t even realised that it had grown dark outside, hadn’t noticed the hunger gnaw in his stomach. Snafu was still wearing his dirty boiler suit, an ugly plaid jacket thrown over the top. “Come here.”

Snafu didn’t move, just cut his eyes away from where Eugene was sat in the bed, towards the window to the street outside. _Uncomfortable to be acting the adult for once_ , Eugene thought, and then felt immediately mean and guilty for it. The orange light from outside threw a pool of light over the bed, over half of Snafu’s mean, precious face. He bared his teeth at nothing, and then sighed. “I love you.”

“Come here.” Eugene said again, and Snafu unstuck himself from the doorway to come sit on the edge of the bed. The set of his shoulders was bone tired, exhausted, and Eugene suddenly regretted being bratty. “I’m sorry.” He offered, and Snafu turned a little, pressed his cheek to his shoulder and pursed his lips as he watched Eugene’s fingers pick at a loose thread on the duvet. 

“I don’t know what to say to you.” He murmured, glancing up at Eugene from under his lashes. “I don’t know how to make it better.”

Eugene shrugged helplessly, trying to come up with anything he could think of that may make him feel better, but failing. It was the _anxiety_ , the pure fear that picked up his pulse and made him sweat; all aimed at nothing, some phantasm his brain was dreaming up for him every night and allowing to spill into his waking hours. He couldn’t leave the house, couldn’t do more than stare at the wall and let the weight of what the war did to him settle like a thick layer of ash. “I don’t know either.” He said, embarrassed by how small and vulnerable his voice sounded. Snafu dropped his eyes back to the bed, mouth twisting into something solemn and sad. “It’ll pass.” Eugene added, more of a reminder to himself, and Snafu tilted his head in acknowledgement.

“Can’t live for the future though, can we?” His big green eyes were gentle, and Eugene shuffled closer until Snafu could pull him into a hug. He smelled like the garage, like metal and oil, and Eugene breathed in deep to centre himself. “C’mon, boo. Come see something.”

Eugene felt curiously spacey, far away, as he followed Snafu through to the kitchen. The tile was freezing again, the kitchen window wide open in Snafu’s desperate bid for the mean looking tomcat he’d spotted skulking around the alley by their apartment building.

“We’re not allowed animals, Snaf.” Eugene muttered absently, at the same time Snafu shushed him and pointed to the ugly orange armchair he’d made an unfortunate centrepoint to the room last week. “Oh.”

Curled up in the horrible orange armchair was the equally moth-eaten and orange cat that had been the object of Snafu’s always misplaced affections that week. As Eugene watched, he stretched, one impossibly pink paw extending out before he tucked himself back into a ball. 

“Oh, Snafu.” He muttered. “For gods sake.”

“I found him here when I got home.” Snafu said, voice hushed as if anything could scare the lump of cat currently making himself at home in their apartment. “I guess the cat food worked.”

“This is crazy behaviour.” Eugene said, annoyed as he realised he’d also dropped his voice to the same hushed tone. “It’s a wild animal, Snaf.”

“Everythin’ deserves a home, Sledgehammer.” The nickname rolled too easily off of Snafu’s tongue, but he seemed too caught up in his new pet that he didn’t notice. Eugene eyed him, took in the smile on his face, and sighed. 

“‘S your responsibility.” He said, “Don’t catch me making friends with it.”

Snafu scoffed, but the glance he threw Eugene was decidedly tender. “Now who’s looking into the future, huh?”

Eugene just grunted, and left Snafu to his animal in favour of the warm embrace of his bed. As he left the room, he let a smile lift the corners of his mouth, endeared by the cooing noises from the kitchen as Snafu attempted to get the cat on his side.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading! and thank you for all the lovely encouraging comments from the past few weeks, it means a lot that people want to see this just as much as i want to share it and write it! thank you thank you thank you


	4. Chapter 4

Most days Snafu was awake and gone before Eugene even woke up. The garage was a handful of miles away, and the bus service poor, so Eugene rarely got little more than a glimpse of Snafu as he headed out the door into the watery, winter morning greyness. 

That was why it was such a complete surprise to wake to the warm weight of Snafu next to him, and the soft sound of his sleep-heavy breathing was so reminiscent of older times that Eugene laid there confused for a moment. Half-asleep, he swore he could almost smell the honeysuckle and the heavy heat of their summer. Then he snapped away from it, and shifted gingerly onto his side so as not to wake Snafu.

He was curled into a tight little ball on his side, mouth slack and open in his sleep. Eugene smiled, and brushed a stray piece of hair off of Snafu’s forehead. His hair was overlong - he kept ignoring Eugene’s offers to cut it. Secretly, Eugene thought Snafu thought it flattered him. Even more secretly, he thought it did too.

“Hey,” He murmured, as gentle as he could, and watched as Snafu stirred, cracked open one bloodshot eye. “Are you gonna be late for work?”

“No.” Snafu breathed, still. His eye slipped shut.

“How come?”

“God, Gene.” Snafu muttered turning his face into the mattress with a groan. “Closed.” He stretched, joints popping. “Was gonna lie in.”

“Sorry.” Eugene murmured, and meant it. Snafu was back to sleepless nights again, and Eugene was tired of finding him asleep and draped over the furniture after work. Half a beer and he’d be snoring, face pushed into the scratchy fabric of their sofa and limbs hanging all over the place. “Shoulda let you rest.”

“S’alright.” Snafu mumbled, accent heavy. “Class today?”

Eugene crept closer, tucked Snafu’s sweet, curly head under his chin and pulled him into his chest. “Studying.” Snafu made a noise at that, something between a _tsk_ and a hiss. He hated finals as much as Eugene, it seemed.

They laid together for a while, Snafu slipping back into a doze as Eugene watched the room lighten around them. He heard a thump from the kitchen; either the cat arriving or leaving, he hadn’t worked out how to tell yet. Snafu shifted, coughed, blindly reached up to tug Eugene’s face down for an off-centre kiss.

“Awake?” Eugene asked, amused, and Snafu just kissed him again, fingers skimming the close cropped hair at the back of his head.

“Could do with a little more wakin’ up, cher.” Snafu mumbled, lips at Eugene’s temple. “If yanno what I mean.”

“I’m sure I don’t, because I’m sure you know I’ve got too much to study today.” Eugene said, but he was already pulling Snafu’s hips close, dipping his fingers below the waistband of his underwear as he settled his thigh between Snafu’s legs. “I’m sure you wouldn’t ask for anything if you knew that.”

“Then you don’t know me at all, Gene.” Snafu drawled, that sleep rough husk to his voice that made Eugene’s stomach jump. Lazily, he rolled his hips against Eugene’s, kissed him deep. “‘Sides, focuses the mind.”

Eugene kissed him again, melting into the press of his mouth, the feeling of his hands in his hair, skimming his arm, his back. He was covered in goosepimples, he realised. The cold, and the anticipation. Snafu grazed Eugene’s nipple with his thumbnail, and grinned into their kisses when Eugene made a small, surprised noise. His cock was hard when he pressed it to Eugene’s hip again, insistent, and Eugene just cupped his ass in one hand and pulled him rougher against him. 

“What do you want?” Eugene asked, low and right in Snafu’s ear, close enough to feel him shiver. How Snafu went from freshly woken up to turned on was beyond Eugene, but he’d be a liar if he said he didn’t enjoy it. He dug his fingers into the swell of Snafu’s ass, guided his hips up as he rolled his hard cock against Eugene’s hip. His mouth was open a little, slack, pink, and Eugene leaned in to kiss him again. “Tell me” He murmured, pressing his forehead to Snafu’s so he could watch his face as he rubbed himself off on Eugene.

“Whatever you want.” Snafu said, hand gripping tight on Eugene’s waist as he ground on him. “Anything.”

“Pass me the vaseline, then.” Eugene said, and Snafu scrambled for the side table, a grin tugging at his lips. “Jesus, is that all it takes to get a smile outta you?”

“You sayin’ I ain’t hard work?” Snafu said, tossing the bottle back at Eugene before rolling onto his back to pull his underwear off. Eugene watched him, long skinny legs, the definition in his stomach as he shifted, the dark hair there leading down to where he was flushed and hard for Eugene. 

“I’m not gonna even answer that.” Eugene said, reaching out for Snafu, who pressed his cheek to Eugene’s bicep with a grin and a kiss. “On your stomach.”

“Yessir.” Snafu said, suddenly chipper despite the early hour and the dark circles under his eyes. Eugene squeezed his thigh, and Snafu slapped him away playfully. “C’mon.”

“If you’d _let_ me.” Eugene muttered, a smile on his face as he pressed Snafu into the mattress with a gentle hand between his shoulder blades. Snafu immediately stilled, rested his face on his crossed arms as he watched Eugene out of the corner of his eye. A smirk tugged at his mouth. “Open your legs.” Eugene said, and Snafu arched his back a little, spread them, the smirk growing.

He looked gorgeous in the grey light of the winter sunrise, too whole, too real amongst the white sheets. His olive skin still held on stubbornly to its summer darkness, and despite the press of his ribs against the skin, he looked so beautiful that Eugene wanted to consume him. Grey-blue eyes, the pout of that full upper lip and the shock of curls on his head. The way he pushed back into Eugene’s touch as he pressed slick fingers to his hole.

“Don’t go too soft.” Snafu murmured, closing his eyes as Eugene bent to kiss the jut of his spine. The blind trust in his voice was heady, and Eugene pressed forward against him slowly, steady. Snafu’s mouth dropped open as he slipped inside, brows coming together in an expression of mixed pain and pleasure as Eugene curled his fingers inside and thrust. “Harder.” He said, voice ragged, and Eugene braced one hand by Snafu’s head as he leaned forward to nose at his ear.

“Ask me again.” He murmured, his fingers still fucking shallowly and slowly inside him. “Nicely.”

“‘S too _early_ for this, you bastard.” Snafu slurred against his arm, eyes still closed as he rocked back onto Eugene’s fingers. Eugene didn’t let up, didn’t fuck him like he knew Snafu wanted: deep and hard and just toeing the line on _too much_. After a minute of Snafu whining in mostly frustration against the mattress he murmured, “Please. Harder, please.”

Eugene kissed his shoulder, the freckles there, and ground his fingers hard into Snafu, enough to make him moan and dig his fingers into the bed below him. “Like that?” He breathed, watching Snafu’s mouth drop open, his back arch, as Eugene began fucking him in earnest. 

“Yes.” Snafu gasped, pressing his ass back against Eugene. “ _Yes_.” Eugene twisted his fingers inside him, felt him clench around him as Snafu moaned low into the mattress. “Right _there_.” His voice was small, edged with desperation, and Eugene gave it to him again and again until he was grinding his fingers up into the part inside Snafu that make him sob, made his cock leak onto the mattress below. “Touch me.” Snafu sobbed, and Eugene nosed at the shell of his ear, eased his fingers deep into Snafu just to hear his breath hitch in his throat. He curled them, teasingly slow, and Snafu dropped his forehead to the mattress, fingers clenching in the sheets below. “Gene.”

Snafu’s cock was hanging heavy and slick between his legs, forgotten in favour of his ass. When Eugene sat back to take him in, Snafu whimpered, hid his face. “Touch yourself.” Eugene said, voice low as he watched his fingers move in and out of Snafu, who hesitated at the order. “Go on.” Eugene said, and smoothed his free hand along Snafu’s spine, comforting. Slow, Snafu uncurled a little, pushing his ass back into Eugene’s touch as he reached a hand back to grip his cock.

“Fuck.” He breathed, and Eugene watched his free hand grip tightly onto the sheet as he began to touch himself with the other. Eugene bent to kiss the middle of his back, kept his lips there against his bony spine as he quickened the pace of his thrusts. Snafu moaned, low and long, and Eugene felt the vibration of it under his mouth. Snafu came a moment later, a few strokes to his cock and he was spilling all over his hand, the sheets. He was shivering, moaning in tiny, bitten off noises as he shook. Eugene eased him through it, pulled his fingers from Snafu’s body as he kissed him gentle on the nape of his neck.

“Good?” He asked, and Snafu mumbled something incoherent into his arm. Eugene flopped down next to his prone body, pressed a kiss to his sweaty temple. His hair was curling sweetly over his ears, and Eugene brushed it back, kissed his ear, his neck, his cheek, anywhere he could reach. “Hey.” 

“Hey.” Snafu groaned, and with seemingly great effort turned his face to the side to pout his lips at Eugene. Eugene kissed him, grinned as Snafu’s mouth relaxed into a smile. His cheeks were pink, two bright spots of colour high up on his cheeks, his lips bitten red. “I love you.”

“Love you too.” Eugene murmured, resting his hand at Snafu’s waist as he moved onto his side. “You awake enough now?”

“Nah.” Snafu said, closing his eyes as curled further into Eugene’s chest. “Far from it.”

“Hey, don’t get comfortable.” Eugene said, gentle. “I’ve gotta get up.”

“Five more minutes.” Snafu’s face was pressed into the mattress now, words slurred like he was barely clinging onto wakefulness. He always got like this after morning orgasms, and Eugene often played it to his advantage when he knew he had a busy day that Snafu was bound to distract him from. He smiled, kissed Snafu’s forehead as he extracted himself from Snafu’s arms. “C’mon,” Snafu whined, half-hearted. “Lemme suck you off.”

“Later.” Eugene said, batting Snafu’s hands away from him. “Promise.”

“You’re gonna kill ya’self studying.” Snafu mumbled, shifting as he made himself comfortable. “‘S not good for nobody.”

“Should I keep my head nice and empty like yours?” Eugene quipped, pulling his underwear on. Snafu didn’t reply, and when Eugene looked, he was dead asleep, drooling against the mattress. The rush of love Eugene felt was gentle, and he grinned to himself before crossing the room to go shower, to start his day, leaving Snafu to his dreamless sleep alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i promise i didn't mean for this sex chapter to coincide with easter but fate works in mysterious ways


	5. Chapter 5

It was around noon when Snafu rose again. Eugene was so focused on the textbook in front of him that he barely registered the soft pad of Snafu’s bare feet on the linoleum, and jumped when a hand came to cover his eyes and pull his head back.

“Guess who.” Snafu murmured, voice still sleep thick and low. Eugene made a small noise of annoyance.

“Lemme go.” Snafu kissed Eugene’s unsuspecting lips, and released him. “Bastard.”

“Someone’s in a good mood.” Snafu said lightly, hands drawing up Eugene’s face, through his hair. “You want coffee?”

“Sure.” Eugene replied, already feeling his attention being tugged back to his notes. He shivered, added, “Close the window, will you?”

He listened to Snafu moving around the kitchen, the thud of the window being pulled shut, the sound of the faucet that followed. It felt homely and comfortable to sit at their kitchen table and study, listen to the quiet gurgle of the coffee machine and the sounds of Snafu attempting to make friends with the cat. Finals had been leaving him exhausted, long nights hunched over the kitchen table, his little study space cleared in the middle of all Snafu’s detritus. It was enough to wake up next to Snafu, have sex, be in the same place as him. Lonely days on top of lonely nights where Snafu banished himself to the sofa to keep from waking Eugene up began to really pile on top of each other, so Eugene took the time that they did have seriously. He caught Snafu by the hand as he placed a mug of coffee down next to Eugene’s elbow, drew him in for a kiss.

“What’s gotten into you today, boo?” Snafu sounded amused, pleased. His eyes crinkled as Eugene ducked to kiss the back of his hand, affectionate. 

“Glad you’re here.” He said, simply, and Snafu rolled his eyes at that. That unspoken, looming fear of the Autumn felt like a distant memory, that constant press of _I did this to him, I did this to him, I did-_

“Nose back to the grindstone.” Snafu said, pushing Eugene lightly on the back of his head. “Don’t let me catch you slackin’.” The grin in his voice was infectious, and Eugene bit the inside of his cheek to hide his smile as he watched Snafu settle himself down on the sofa. The cat had been lounging there, and gave Snafu a long, imperious look before hopping down to join Eugene at the table. “Oh, he hates me.” Snafu lamented, eyes following the cat as it picked its way through the debris on the table for a clear patch. “He broke the coffee cup I bought in the Castro the other day.”

“Probably for the best.” Eugene muttered, writing a quick note in the margin of his book. Snafu grunted.

“I don’t know why you take his side.”

Eugene raised his eyebrows, “Neither do I.”

The afternoon slipped away into the murmur of the wireless as Eugene fell headfirst into his work. Snafu left, came back with pastries still warm and greasy in the bag, kissed the icing sugar from the corner of Eugene’s mouth as they ate them together over coffee. Snafu fed most of his to the cat, a bid to gain its affections. 

“You’ll make it fat.” Eugene murmured, watching Snafu pull apart a danish with greasy fingers. “Stop wiping your hands in its fur.”

“I’m not.” Snafu said, petulant. “Besides, you don’t care.”

Eugene sucked sugar off his thumb, hummed in thought. “I care that you want him to be your co-conspirator.”

“Dunno the meaning of that.” Snafu said dismissively, the sly shine in his eyes belying his supposed stupidity. Eugene let him have it, too quietly happy to have Snafu at home and in a good mood to care if he was spoiling what was only tenuously their animal in the first place. 

Days slipped by in a haze of early mornings and restless nights. Finals were closing in, the dark evenings making Eugene’s days at home feel short and claustrophobic. Often, Snafu would come home from work to find Eugene dozing over a textbook, or half asleep and mildly drunk watching pasta boil on the stove. He was always good with him, easing him into bed, or a coffee into his hands, always amused but for once not teasing.

“Dunno why we even have a bedroom anymore.” Eugene mumbled, turning over onto his side where he was stretched out on the sofa. He pressed his forehead against the back cushion, closed his weary, burning eyes. “Neither of us make it there half the time.”

“‘S for scandalising ya’ parents.” Snafu said, and nudged Eugene’s shoulder with something cold and hard. “Beer.”

“I shouldn’t.” Eugene sighed, already taking it from Snafu’s hand as he rolled over onto his back. Snafu clinked the bottom of his own bottle against Eugene’s, and grinned. 

“Fancy you gettin’ in the Friday spirit, boo.” He drawled, and took a swig of his beer as he wandered away. The cat followed at his feet, loyal to scraps from dinner and nothing else. True to nature, Snafu fed it a rolled up morsel of bread, punted it at the thing’s head from where he was slouched against the counter. 

“Seems like we all are.” Eugene said, tiredly, as the cat relocated back to its hideaway under the sofa, victorious. “You makin’ enough money to feed that cat our hard earned food?”

“His name’s Leo and you know that.” Snafu took a pull from the bottle in his hand, dug his smokes out of his back pocket. “You want?” He gestured with the packet, and after a moment of consideration Eugene shrugged, nodded. Snafu tossed it at him, obnoxious as ever, and Eugene almost dropped his condensation-slick beer in his attempt at catching it. 

“Ass.” Eugene muttered, and Snafu just winked. 

The smell of smoke filled the room, achingly comforting, and Eugene melted back into the pull of the sofa as he let the sounds of home surround him. He had his last exam on Monday, and then nothing to do but eat and sleep and drink until Christmas. He knew the weather would still be mild in Alabama, God, it was still mild in San Francisco if the wind didn’t have a chill behind it. He looked forward to sitting out on the porch with Snafu, getting some time away to themselves.

“Remember to ask for time off.” He said, absently, mind whirring away as he stared off into the middle distance.

“For what?” Snafu asked, and Eugene refocused. Snafu looked puzzled, and Eugene wondered whether, between his health and work and everything else, Snafu had forgotten Christmas was coming up.

“What do you mean?” He asked, “To go back to Alabama for the holidays.”

Snafu gazed at him in abject confusion for a second, and then laughed abruptly. “What?”

Eugene frowned, sitting up a little straighter on the sofa as he wracked his mind to work out whether he and Snafu had actually ever _spoken_ about this. Maybe not, but wasn’t it always the assumption? “It’s been the plan all along.” Eugene said, confused. “Where else would we go?”

Snafu was staring at Eugene like he’d grown another head. “I didn’t think we’d go anywhere, Gene.” He laughed again, brought a hand to his brow. “Why’d you wanna share the holidays with them? Why’d you think I would?” 

Eugene was lost for words, he opened his mouth, closed it. “I don’t-“

“You weren’t thinkin’ of anyone but yourself.” Snafu said, flippant. Eugene felt his annoyance spike with it, that tone reminding him of the long weeks at the very tail end of summer, where Snafu was withdrawn and resentful and sarcastic and Eugene spent the time guilty and snappish in equal measures. "We're spendin' Christmas here."

“I thought you’d gotten over this shit, Snafu.” He retorted, and Snafu widened his eyes at him, as if he couldn’t believe that he was starting something over this. Eugene could understand it, this was normally Snafu’s game: to make an argument out of a perfectly peaceful evening. When he got down he got angry, but the way this night was turning was only partly his fault. 

“Please fill me in on what ya think I shoulda gotten over, boo.” His accent was thicker when he was amused-annoyed. Slowed down his words to infuriate Eugene. It was the fault of the war that they knew all of the other’s buttons to push, but so was everything else. Eugene wondered where he’d be right now if it wasn’t for the goddamn Pacific, and guessed he wouldn’t be arguing over a beer with his mean Corporal in their shared apartment.

“This goddamn,” Eugene cast around for the right word, “ _Resentment_.”

Snafu rolled his eyes, took a swig of his beer. “Alright, Gene.”

The annoyance spiked again, like a flush of heat through him. “Jesus, Snafu, have you always gotta be so fucking blasé about everything?” Snafu shrugged one shoulder, eyes on the dark sky through the kitchen window. “What, you don’t resent it?”

Snafu groaned, “What d’you want from me, Eugene?” Anger was finally bleeding into his voice. Impatience. “You want me to say I hate ya stuck up, bigoted fucking parents?”

“They let you stay for months over the summer.” Eugene said, coldly. “Didn’t say a word.”

“No, ‘cos nice, rich families like yours wouldn’t if they thought their son was a queer.” Snafu snapped, and Eugene almost recoiled at the venom in his voice. “They looked at me like I was dirt the whole damn time.” He hissed, and despite the hurt in his eyes Eugene only felt himself get madder. 

“So what, you’re never gonna be able to put up with them?” He asked, “You’re gonna spend every Christmas alone now? All the holidays?” An ugly, black thought crossed his mind, _Maybe this won’t work out then,_ and he dismissed it before it took root. He was tense, hand so tight around his steadily warming beer that it was numb. 

“Oh, I’m spending Christmas alone now, am I?” Snafu asked, and then, “Why don’t you care that they hate me?” The anger had left his voice, and Eugene couldn’t bring himself to meet Snafu’s eyes.

Was this it? Was this the core of everything Snafu had been curling himself around? The hurt and the anger and isolation. The thought of of Snafu hurting over this, for so long, made Eugene ache. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever considered his parents feelings for Snafu, especially not now they had moved away. It was complicated, it was the silent, unsaid things, and neither of them were blameless. “I care!” Eugene said, “It’s just.” He fell silent, unable to voice it.

“What, it’s my fault?” Snafu said, quiet, and when Eugene shook his head he murmured, “Gene?” Eugene just took a pull from the bottle in his hand, moving on automatic. His cigarette was burning down alone in the ashtray, and he watched it to keep from meeting Snafu’s gaze.

The silence stretched, the only sounds in the kitchen the hum of the refrigerator and the noise of the cat grooming himself. Eugene rubbed his eyes, left his hands over his eyes as his brain ticked over. What if the war hadn’t happened indeed. A dangerous path of thought to follow down, a rabbit hole where at the bottom lay only madness. 

“Y’know,” Snafu muttered, eventually, “You can be a real bastard sometimes.” 

“Yeah.” Eugene said, quiet into his palms. His eyes burned, tiredness and emotion all welling up. He listened to Snafu move around the room, the sound of his shoes on the wood of the hall, the rustle of a coat. Then the front door slammed and Eugene was left alone in the sudden, deafening silence of the night. When he glanced up, the cat had crept from under the couch and was waiting by the window. Robotically, Eugene stood, opened the window so it could leap out. 

“You’re supposed to like me.” He called after it, shutting the window behind it. “Ingrate.” He announced to the empty room, to Snafu’s abandoned bottle of beer on the side. The sight of it sent an odd pulse of sadness through him, and he pressed the back of his wrist to his eyes as tears rose to threaten in the back of his throat. He breathed through it, willing himself not to cry over it. Then, he drunk the rest of his beer, the rest of Snafu’s, and another he grabbed from the fridge as he paced the apartment. Midnight passed with no sign of Snafu, so Eugene surrendered himself to the too-empty expanse of their bed. 

Sleep didn’t come, despite the beers, so Eugene lay awake and watched the lights from passing cars slide across the ceiling. He lost track of time as he dozed, head full of half-connected thoughts as he replayed their argument over in his head. Of course he knew that his parents didn’t like Snafu, or rather they didn’t like him because of what they assumed about them. Assumed correctly, probably. They’d never spoken about it with him, Snafu was right about the silent judgement, but his mother at the very least was sharp about these things. She’d always harboured it, maybe, since she’d caught Eugene and Sid once, fifteen years ago or so. 

The thing that stuck in Eugene’s throat was Snafu’s stubbornness, his self-centeredness. Didn’t he ever think that perhaps Eugene would be uncomfortable to return home after living alone with Snafu all this time? That he relished the silent family dinners, the pointed glances, the conversation his brother would undoubtedly pull him aside for? At least with Snafu there his parents would have to be polite around a guest.

His thoughts were interrupted then, by the banging open of the front door. For a moment, he was tense, half-asleep brain suddenly wired. Then he heard the familiar, stumbling tread of a drunken Snafu, and he settled back, ears pricked. He tracked him through the hall, to the lino floor of the kitchen. He heard the fridge open, a bottle being placed on the counter, the unmistakable sound of Snafu kicking the fridge door shut. Eugene shifted in bed, wondering if he should get up and speak to him. Snafu when he was drunk was usually mellow, but Eugene hadn’t seen him drunk and mad in a while, and guessed that it wouldn’t help his case at all. He rolled over in bed, tucked the pillow under his chin as he listened.

There came the smell of cigarette smoke, the slide of the window opening, and then silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! it's worth noting i'm nearing a lot of deadlines rn, including my dissertation, so updates may slow or get a little shorter over the next couple weeks , but not forever!


	6. Chapter 6

The week passed with all the grace of a drunken animal. Eugene completed his last final, and let himself be dragged to a bar by his classmates to avoid another tense, silent night in with Snafu. He was keeping up the silent treatment, the sleeping on the couch, the staying out late and rising early. Eugene couldn’t remember a time when Snafu was angry with him for so long; his temper was usually fast and fiery but quick to burn out. It wasn’t like him to let something simmer for so long, and Eugene was both half annoyed by it and half afraid that it meant something worse, some breaking point they might never return from.

“I’m making dinner.” He commented, eyes on the book in front of him that he was only half-reading. Snafu had returned from work only moments earlier, still smelled of the fresh cold air, the oil slick fumes of diesel. He was drinking a glass of water noisily by the sink, and didn’t reply. “You’re welcome to some.” Eugene added, and Snafu set his glass down heavily. 

“Headed out.” He said, short. Eugene gritted his teeth, annoyance flaring up. The dismissiveness was wearing on him, more irritating than the rest of it. He was used to Snafu keeping odd hours, or sleeping on the couch, drinking a little more than needed, but to have levelled at him that particular brand of rudeness that only Snafu could muster was a little hard to swallow. 

“You’ve been out all week.” Eugene said, closing his book and tossing it to the side. Snafu had crossed the kitchen, was peering into the fridge. His work boots were still on, which Snafu knew Eugene hated, and his boiler suit was streaked with oily marks. Eugene watched as he pulled a beer from the fridge, kicked the door shut with the heel of his boot as he turned away.

“And you ain’t my keeper.” He replied, rummaging through a drawer for the bottle opener. It was only after he’d opened his beer that he looked at Eugene, and raised his eyebrows. 

Eugene stared at him. Snafu took a pull from the bottle in his hand, didn’t break the eye contact. “You’re being an ass.” Eugene said, eventually, after several meaner things had come to life and died on his tongue. Snafu snorted.

“So are you.” Snafu pointed out, something amused and sharp in his eyes. He took a swig, and paced through to take a seat on the sofa, got to work unlacing his boots. Eugene watched him, taking in the the knicks and bruises on his forearms, his hands, and the sweet curls at the nape of his neck. “You said I’m resentful so,” He kicked off one shoe, gave Eugene a sly, sidelong look. “I’m being resentful.”

Sometimes it was beyond belief how beautiful and how frustrating Snafu could be at the same time. “You’re childish.” Eugene said, and Snafu ignored him, just kicked his remaining shoe off and leaned back against the cushions, grease stains and all. “You’re really gonna go through with this?” He pressed, and Snafu’s mouth tightened. 

“Are _you_?” He asked, and when Snafu turned to look Eugene in the eye, there was so much badly concealed hurt in his gaze that Eugene had to look away. He stood, and crossed through to the kitchen to pretend to prep for dinner just to avoid the look in Snafu’s eyes.

“So what,” Eugene said, pulling the fish from the fridge as he spoke. “You’re dying to spend Christmas with the cat?”

There was a long silence, and Eugene let it stretch, feeling guilty and annoyed because of it. He shouldn’t be made to feel bad about wanting to spend the holidays with his family, and besides, what family gatherings were pleasant in the first place? Better to suffer through it together than alone. Just like their wartime Christmases, just like the holidays spent in the years since. 

“No,” Snafu said, eventually. “I thought I was gonna get to spend it with you.” He sounded hurt, and very quiet. Eugene found himself rooted to the spot with guilt, and some unnameable emotion that was rising quickly and inexorably in him. He thought perhaps it was pity. “But I guess not.” Snafu added, and Eugene listened to the couch creak as he rose from it.

“There’s still time.” Eugene murmured, half turning just in time to catch Snafu in the doorway leading to their bedroom. Christmas was in a week, Eugene had only just booked the ticket home. The expression on Snafu’s face was melancholy, and he tapped his fingers on the doorframe twice, looked down.

“Wouldn’t be the first time I spent it alone, Gene.” He muttered, and threw a rueful smile over his shoulder as he left the room, hand already fiddling with the snaps of his boiler suit. “I’ll bring Leo to Mass instead.”

Eugene made dinner alone, the sound of the shower the backdrop to his overactive mind as he absently fried the fish he’d bought for the two of them. He’d cook all of it, or else it’d go bad, and besides if Snafu was going drinking then he’d like something to eat when he got home, he hadn’t had dinner, and had been at work all day too, so he --

Eugene braced himself on the counter, hung his head as he closed his eyes against the tears that had been pricking his eyes all week. The fish had burned, his head too far in the clouds to notice, and for some reason it was enough to set him off. The straw that broke the camel’s back. He pressed a hand to his mouth, hoped the shower would hide the sound from Snafu as he let out a sob, heaved in a ragged breath. Stupid, pointless arguing. How could they argue about such silly things after everything they had been through? He couldn’t stop thinking about the Christmas they had celebrated some weeks after Peleliu, all of them hollow eyed and shattered and banged up, but still managing to get a little bit of the spirit despite the heat and and the sand and the horrors they had seen. It hadn’t been long after Snafu had taken him under his wing, it wasn’t long before Eugene would crack under the pressure of it all and lose himself in months of mud. 

Snafu had given Eugene his very own dime strung necklace; Eugene remembered the way the metal had been hot from the sun, how Snafu hadn’t been able to meet his eyes. Looking back, as Eugene often did, it was such an important, weighty offering. A promise of luck to carry him through whatever their next campaign would bring. Eugene thought of Snafu, barefoot, curls stiff with seawater, sun touched skin and that awful knot of scar tissue like a stain. Impossibly boyish and aged at the same time.

“‘S for luck.” Snafu had muttered, fast like he had to get the words out before Eugene could say a thing. He touched his index finger to the dime, hot in the palm of Eugene’s outstretched hand. “Jus’ like mine.” His eyes had darted, shoulders hunched almost self consciously until Eugene had thanked him and he’d smiled, and his following shrug had seemed to infuse his body with that leonine laziness that was irritating and sensual all at once.

Eugene pressed the back of his wrist to his nose, breathed out slowly until his throat felt a little less tight with tears. He scrubbed at his eyes, the smell of the stupid burnt fish heavy in his nose.

“Something’s burnin’.” Snafu yelled through from the other room, and Eugene pressed his knuckles into his eyes, didn’t reply. He listened to the squeak of the bathroom door, Snafu clearing his throat, the noise of a drawer opening.

He’d lost the charm at some point in the mud of Okinawa, and that omen had settled over him like a dark cloud ever since.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! super short update because of exams, but hope u enjoyed :^)


	7. Chapter 7

Snafu was sitting on the kitchen counter, the day Eugene was due to leave. Reading a book, strung dime in his mouth, completely rapt by the story in his hands.

“I won’t repeat myself.” Eugene said, pulling his jacket on. “The same old argument.”

The dime dropped from Snafu’s mouth, spit slick and shining in the grey dawn light. He sniffled, rubbed his nose with the heel of his hand. “Then don’t.” His eyes didn’t leave his book.

“I won’t.” Eugene retorted, and then, “Just go to the pharmacy with that cold, will you?” The cat butted his head against Eugene’s shins, his clean pants. “Jesus, and feed the cat.”

“Take the cat to the pharmacy, yeah.” Snafu muttered, flicked a page in his book before finally glancing up. “You got it.” His eyes were red rimmed to match his running nose, but the set of his mouth was cocky, challenging. Eugene knew well enough by now when he was being baited. 

“Snafu, I’m not biting.” He said, and picked his suitcase up. Snafu’s eyes flicked from his face, to the suitcase, and back. His mouth pulled to the side, less cocky now. “Last chance.”

Snafu gave him a long, searching look, and Eugene watched with a sinking feeling in his gut as he watched him hitch that smirk back onto his face. “For you to bite?”

“Don’t be an ass.” Eugene shot back, “It doesn’t suit you.”

Snafu said nothing, just raised his eyebrows as he leaned back against the wall. His thumb was marking his place in his book, the only sign he hadn’t dismissed Eugene completely. “Better get goin’ then.” His gaze was cool, that tilted up chin, stony eyes. Eugene found himself rooted to the floor now that it was time to leave. His hand was sweaty around the leather handle of the suitcase.

“Fine.” He said, and silence fell between them. “Have a good Christmas.”

Snafu’s mouth tightened. “You too.” 

It was too formal, too stilted, and Eugene found his resolve crumbling the longer they stared each other down from across the kitchen. “Snafu.” He murmured. “Can I-?” He gestured miserably, uselessly. 

Snafu glanced down at the floor and sighed, before hopping down off the counter to cross the room. Eugene dropped his suitcase, reached for him, closed his eyes as Snafu’s familiar, skinny body settled into his arms. The smell of his hair, always the same, always comforting. Eugene pressed his nose to it in some blind attempt at cataloguing everything he’d miss. 

“Come with me.” Eugene mumbled, and Snafu sagged bodily against Eugene with a groan. 

“You know I can’t.” He said, and broke away a little from Eugene’s embrace, just enough to cup his cheek with one gentle hand. “You’ll see why. You gotta.” His eyes were soft on him, a little sad, but Eugene thought Snafu’s big pale eyes always looked melancholy. It was never hard to find the hurt that dwelled underneath all that anger. 

“I wish you wouldn’t do this.” Eugene said, drawing him in for a kiss. Snafu went easily, kissed him slow, like he was taking Eugene in. “I’m still mad at you.” Eugene murmured, and Snafu just snorted, backed away from the embrace.

“Tell me about it.” He said ruefully, rubbing at his nose. “Now, c’mon, go. Before I get ya’ sick.”

“You’re a bastard for this.” Eugene said, unable to take a step away. Snafu glanced away, those big eyes roving around the room as a mocking little smile spread on his face.

“You too.” He said, eventually, and met Eugene’s gaze again only to shove him gently by the shoulder. “An’ you can always come back early.”

The leaving didn’t feel real until Eugene was in the cab to the airport, watching their apartment dwindle to nothing in the back window. Tears hurt his throat, and he scrubbed at his eyes as he told himself over and over, _He’ll be there when you get back, he’ll be there when you get back-_

\----------

Eugene’s brother picked him up from the airport, and clapped him on the back so hard that Eugene almost pitched forward. Goddamn athleticism. Goddamn machismo. 

“Gene,” He said, and grinned. “Just you?”

“Can I drive?” Eugene asked, instead of answering, and Edward’s grin grew. 

It felt good to be at the wheel again. It felt good to be _home_ again, and it was a guilty thought but one he let himself have. He’d never realised how much he’d missed the south. He wondered if Snafu missed it too.

The car ride was quiet, and Eugene was half-glad for it. He wasn’t sure whether he wanted Edward to mention Snafu or not. He was almost completely sure he wouldn’t, not unless Eugene himself brought him up, but there was still the fear. He didn’t want to explain why plans had changed, as he’d promised Snafu’s presence over the holidays to his mother in a letter. He didn’t want the ‘told you so’ attitude his brother often adopted with him, self-righteous in that way that only older siblings could be.

“How’s Hannah?” Eugene asked, glancing to the side just in time to catch Edward’s fond smile. Last time Eugene had been home, Edward’s wife had just had their first child. It was sickeningly domestic, but Eugene supposed he didn’t have much room to judge.

“She’s great.” Edward said, an air of satisfaction about him. He paused. “You dating, Gene?”

Eugene’s blood ran cold. “What?”

“You gotta girl?”

The silence that descended on the car was uncomfortable, or maybe Eugene was just making it so. He flexed his hands around the steering wheel, and huffed out an unconvincing laugh.

“You know me.” He muttered, everything he wanted to say and needed to say clamouring at the back of his throat. “Not just yet.” He thought of Snafu, asleep in his bed, kissing him, resting the weary weight of his body against Eugene’s after a long day. It felt wrong to say no, but he couldn’t face telling the truth just yet. 

Edward didn’t say anything for a long time, not until they were pulling into the long drive to the house. “You’re still living with that guy, the one who was here all summer?” He asked. “Your war buddy?”

“I am.” Eugene said, tight lipped. He didn’t like the direction this was going. His stomach felt tight with nerves, with fear. The wheels of the car crunched on the gravel, familiar, homely. He pulled up to the house, turned to look at his brother once the car had stopped.

Edward seemed about to say something, his brow crumpled, eyes unfocused off on something past the windscreen. “Gene,” He began, and then their mother appeared through the patio doors onto the porch, and the tense silence between them snapped. Eugene breathed a small sigh of relief, sagging back in his seat as he raised a hand to wave to his mother. Neither he or Edward made any move to leave the car. 

“Mom’s gonna scream when she sees how skinny you’ve got.” Edward announced finally, cutting through the atmosphere between them. “She’ll be feeding you up ‘til the new year.” It was apparent he’d moved on from whatever direction his thoughts had been leading him down, had dismissed whatever had risen in his mind. Eugene was sure he was radiating relief. 

“I ain’t staying ‘til the new year.” Eugene said. He wasn’t sure when exactly he’d made that decision, but it may have been sometime between complimentary drinks number two and four. He’d woken from the beginnings of a dream that was promising to turn sour, and the absence of Snafu there for comfort was jarring. Blame it on the alcohol, the dregs of sleep, the distance. Whatever it was, Eugene missed him enough. 

His mother wrapped him up in a hug that smelled like his childhood, and internally, Eugene wondered when exactly Snafu had become _home_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> apologies for the lateness (and shortness) of the chapter, i handed in my dissertation the other day and my week has devolved into essay writing and sleeping so i got DISTRACTED. updates are probably gonna be a little sporadic for a couple weeks until i get finished with university, but i hate to leave things for too long so here's a little something!
> 
> also comments are always appreciated! writing sometimes feels like such a crazy one sided convo, i wanna talk! and i'm at getmean on tumblr if you want an easier way to keep up with updates :^)


	8. Chapter 8

The days between his arrival and Christmas eve passed slowly, each day oozing into the other with the dreadful monotony Eugene found himself settling into. He didn’t know what he had expected of the holiday break, but it wasn’t what he found. It was the nightmares, back with a vengeance, it was his parents stubborn silence and the sidelong questions about ‘his roommate’, like they didn’t know Snafu’s name. It was his mother talking up her friends’ daughters to him at the dinner table, the way his food sat sour in his stomach as he made excuse after excuse as to why he couldn’t meet them. 

To put it into simpler terms: it was dawning on Eugene why Snafu had refused to come. 

The first night alone had been the worst. He kept waking, anxious, confused, his brain not recognising the room around him. He reached for the spot next to him at one point, hand touching empty, cold bed, and his half-asleep brain recoiled from it. Instantly, the unfamiliar dark shapes of the furniture around him were threatening, the walls bearing down on him from their shadowy heights. The lack of traffic noise, of voices from the apartment below, of music, was deafening. He missed the flickering orange street lamp outside of his and Snafu’s bedroom window; without it the night was too black, impenetrable. Eventually, he sunk back into the pillows, pulled one over his face and attempted to will himself back to sleep. Anxiety fluttered in his chest, he hadn’t felt right since he set foot in the door. The fear of being found out, the fear of being alone in this, the fear about Snafu at home alone, left up to his own devices. 

Perhaps his mind knew he was alone, no longer with Snafu just in the next room, let alone asleep next to him. The nightmare he had on his third night at home was intense, vivid, still there waiting for him every time he woke and fell back into his exhausted sleep again. It was his father’s fault, the old man was glued to the radio most hours of the evenings, and all the Cold War murmurings had gotten into Eugene’s head. He knew he was susceptible to paranoia, but just a few nights at home with the newscaster and his father talking about atom bomb this, Russians that, had his head absolutely spinning. He was jumping at shadows, it was triggering something in him that he needed Snafu to soothe him down from. 

Instead, he slept fitfully, shallowly, waiting for terror around every dream corner. It was his first nightmare in weeks, and he dreamed of a bomb the colour of the Golden Gate Bridge, a poisonous orange bug hurtling from the steel grey Okinawan sky towards him. It felt all too real, and he tried to move, to flee for cover, but his feet won’t budge. The dread and panic in his chest reached a peak, and slowly, terrified, he looked down the length of his uniformed, muddy body to see skeletal hands grasping at his ankles, clawing at his boots and at his calves. Eugene shouted, and the noise of the bomb was growing in his ears and he tried to rip his feet free from the hands emerging from the grey mud all around him. They were grasping hungrily at him, and faces started to emerge from the mud, empty eye sockets and horrible, gaping mouths-

Eugene woke with a scream in his throat, clapping his hands over his mouth as he scrambled back into the corner between bed and wall. His breathing was ragged as he gulped at the air, hand dropping to the collar of his nightshirt as if that would help him draw breath. He didn’t recognise the room, and the fear was tugging him down and down, head swimming as his eyes flicked from dark corner to dark corner. In his panic muddled head he was searching for the old itchy afgan Snafu threw over them to sleep, the looming mass of the armoire, anything that felt like _home_. Some smell, some light, _anything_. There was nothing, just velvet dark and silence, his own laboured sobs. He clenched his eyes shut, fought to breathe.

As he began to wake up properly, he began to come down from his panic, eyes adjusting to the room that was once so familiar. His ears pricked at the creak of a floorboard outside his room, and swallowing down his rising panic he croaked, “I’m fine.” His voice was thin with ebbing fear, with the pressure of tears in his throat. When he touched his face, it was wet.

“Can I come in?” His father’s voice, cautious, tired. Guilt settled over Eugene like a familiar old blanket.

“No.” He said, and his voice was as bone tired as he felt. He sat there, sweat cooling and breathing evening out as he listened to his father hesitate, and then retreat. It was only when he heard the door to his parents room click shut did he let out the long, shaky sob that had been threatening at the back of throat. 

He wanted Snafu’s hand on his back, those slow, soothing circles he’d make while he hushed Eugene gently. He wanted their bed, the smell of their home, and it felt like a homesickness he’d never experienced in all his time living away from home. His parents house had changed in the time he’d been gone, become alien in such a subtle way he couldn’t name it. His father wouldn’t stop asking if he needed money. His mother wouldn’t stop asking if he was okay. His mind wouldn’t stop replaying gruesome, warped scenes from the war every night he lay down to rest.

In the end, it became better not to sleep. 

He took to wandering the house at night, like a spook, some kind of ghoul. He was feeling just dramatic enough and just drunk enough some nights to think that it fitted, in some twisted way. He snuck his father’s whiskey like he was sixteen again, enough to help him doze for a few hours, enough to keep him warm on the nights he paced the grounds of the house. He thought a lot about his and Snafu’s liminal, dreamy summer, how the future had seemed to stretch out in front of them. They didn’t talk anymore. Eugene realised that at some point between drink number four and a cigarette pilfered from a pack found in an old shirt Snafu had worn, and maybe that was half the problem. The long, meandering conversations they used to have. In the teeth of a gale, under the expanse of Japanese sky, or drenched in southern heat on the very same porch Eugene was moping on. 

His eyes burned from sleeplessness, itchy and hot like coals in his sockets. 

The part of him that felt restless and othered and _found out_ wanted to get on the next flight home and never glance back. He wanted to talk to Snafu until his throat was sore, as the room turned dark around them. He wanted to apologise, he wanted to be apologised _to_. He wanted to be in some dive bar in San Francisco with Snafu pressed up against his side, warm and tempting in the dark. But here he was: smoking a stale cigarette on the steps of his parents porch, nursing a hangover-weak stomach and a tumbler of whiskey that was steadily warming in his hand. Alone. Would he ever be forgiven?

The sound of the screen door stopped Eugene’s morose navel-gazing in its tracks. He half-turned, nudged his cheek to his shoulder to see his brother silhouetted in the doorway. He was wearing his robe, slippers on his feet, and Eugene watched as he took a step towards him.

“Can I sit?” 

“You’re letting the bugs in.” Eugene grumbled, turning back to his cigarette, to his view of the dark driveway. “Close the door.” He heard his brother take a seat in the chair behind him, at the table he and Snafu used to eat breakfast on, Snafu sunning himself like a stray cat. His heart squeezed, and he took a drink to quell it.

“Still not sleeping?” Edward asked, and Eugene just grunted, eyes on the pillar of ash growing on the end of his cigarette. He could feel Edward’s gaze like a brand on the back of his neck. “I couldn’t either.”

The ash dropped away, and Eugene put the toe of his shoe over it, smeared it grey against the white porch steps. “”S been seven years.” 

“You think I don’t still get nightmares?” Edward asked, an edge to his voice. Eugene didn’t say anything. “Because I do.”

“Did you come out here to figure out which brother has it worse?” Eugene muttered, sloshing his whiskey around in his glass. He noted, with some drunken amusement, that he was beginning to sound a lot like Snafu. “Because you could just ask mom.”

The silence of the night rang between them, the rustle of trees in the slight wind, the creak of the wicker chair as Edward sat back. “You said you’re still living with that man.” He said, and Eugene closed his eyes at the finality of it all. 

“Yes.” He breathed. 

“I wanted to talk to you about it.” Edward said, and Eugene gritted his teeth unhappily, smeared a drunken hand across his face.

“Did mom and dad put you up to this?” He asked, hand over his eyes, cigarette burning so low he could feel the heat on his knuckles. 

“Yeah.” His brother said, after a minute. There was something so inexplicably painful about the plain honesty in his voice, and the unsaid, hushed deceit of his parents. For the first time, Eugene was glad Snafu was nowhere near to hear this. He flicked his cigarette butt away, and watched it glow weakly on the gravel pathway as he listened to Edward pour himself a drink from the bottle Eugene had left on the table. The clink of glass on glass, the glug of what sounded like a generous amount of whiskey. 

Eugene, drunk and bold and _tired_ , muttered, “Do you hate him?”

Edward just took a drink and bowed his head, eyes on the glass in his hand, the contents inky in the darkness. “I know the war was hard on you,” He began, and Eugene cut him off.

“It ain’t got nothin’ to do with that.” He snapped, and his brother ignored him, continued. 

“A lot of men come back with all sortsa,” He seemed to be searching for the word, and Eugene gritted his teeth as the silence spread. “Proclivities.” Edward settled on, and took a drink like he’d earned it. Eugene didn’t say a word, just lit himself another cigarette, hands shaking a little as he brought it away from his mouth, breathed smoke into the night.

All the reasons why Snafu had stayed away were clicking comfortably into place. All the reasons why _he_ should have stayed away. He clenched his jaw, the drunken weaving of his mind spitting _stupid, stupid, stupid_ at him in an endless cycle. Was this worse than the last time he’d been home, or had he just been blind to it? The thought of any member of his family cornering Snafu like this made him feel sick, but the look in Snafu’s eyes when Eugene had brought up Christmas at home took on a different meaning now. Maybe he just wasn’t used to seeing fear on Snafu, maybe that’s how he’d missed it for something else. Snafu’s discomfort last summer was real, and Eugene clung to that. He’d noticed, he’d noticed, he hadn’t done a thing. The guilt was black and hot in his stomach, back again. At the time, he’d thought that that was just how Snafu was: uncomfortable in that half-feral way he’d always had, but looking back, Eugene realised that he was barely like that in San Francisco. Uncomfortable, sure. Moody, morose, blue, _sure_ , but not that particular kind of discomfort that had him silent and hugging the walls like he had been in Alabama.

The worst part about it all was the care in his brother’s voice. The understanding, the _pity_. Like his and Snafu’s relationship was just some foxhole bond that came home. That it was just an issue of Eugene not being able to leave the war behind, not that he was hopelessly in love.

The silence between them swelled. Eugene could tell Edward was waiting for a response, the way he was sloshing the liquor in his glass with nervous hands. Eugene took a long, steadying drink of his own, drained it. “It ain’t like that.” He said, simply, quietly, and all that followed was silence. He set his glass down, reached for the bottle with shaky hands. His palms were cold, clammy with fear for what he knew had to come next. “It’s just how I am. Always been.”

The words dropped like stones into the quiet night, and his brother sighed, scrubbing his hand over his face as he watched Eugene pour himself a neat measure of whiskey. Eugene’s head felt light on his shoulders, more than the alcohol’s effects. Something closer to a heady mixture of relief and deep, terrible fear. He almost wanted to laugh at the absurdity of the situation, but that was definitely the liquor’s fault. It was the first time he had ever said that out loud, and he had had to swallow the impulse to blurt, _don’t tell dad_ straight after.

His brother said nothing more, and the two of them sat in the dark, sharing the small hours of the morning as he finished his drink. There was no air of acceptance, nothing but a downturn to his brother’s mouth that in retrospect, was probably resignation. Disappointment, perhaps. It couldn’t touch him, Eugene decided. If he gave that twist of Edward’s expression any power, any weight, he knew he wouldn’t make it through Christmas and out the other side. Instead, he stuck his chin in the air, channeling some stolen Snafu defiance as his brother stood to go inside without a word.

It was only when Edward shut the kitchen light off, drowning the porch in the darkness of the night, did Eugene drop his heavy, spinning head to his knees. He gulped down a breath, and another, chest uncomfortably tight as the weight of what he’d just done came crashing down on him. He wished he could know what Edward would _do_ with that information, whether he’d use it or keep it locked up tight. It was the uncertainty, the yawning chasm that was Eugene’s future that was as dark as the night around him. 

Nothing was stopping him leaving, nothing but the continued reliance on his parents for rent money, but he could pick up a job easy. Just like Snafu. If they disowned him tomorrow, he could make it work. _They_ could make it work, so. It didn’t matter, but it mattered so much Eugene could barely draw breath under the pressing dread. His brother was staying at the house for Christmas, his wife and Eugene’s little niece in tow. It hurt to imagine never seeing them again, or his mother, his father, the whole lot of them. His chest was a mix of confused love and utter dread, a creeping mourning that was perhaps spurred by the whiskey he’d drank. If Snafu was here, Eugene knew he’d tell him to snap out of it, that he was falling down some well of self-pity that was completely unnecessary. But he wasn’t here, and that was the thorn in Eugene’s side, driving deeper and deeper with every reminder of how much he needed Snafu around.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry about the week or so of updating i missed! just finishing up on uni and still working so it's been slipping my mind! enjoy the chapter, i hope to get back into some kinda update schedule again soon :^)


	9. Chapter 9

Christmas morning came and went, and found Eugene more morose than ever. Close family Christmases weren’t his parents’ thing, and so most of the morning was dedicated to his mother becoming increasingly frazzled as the threat of the soon arriving relatives loomed.

“You’d think she hadn’t been throwing the same Christmas party for forty years.” Eugene quipped, watching his mother frantically reassemble the buffet silverware as a maid watched on. Edward’s wife, Hannah, who was sitting nearby with the baby on her knee, laughed. 

“Don’t be mean.” She murmured, bouncing the baby on her knee as she started to whine. “Maybe she forgets.”

Eugene shot Hannah a mock-scandalised look, and laughed as a grin broke out on her face. “And now who’s being mean?”

“Hush.” She said, like she hadn’t said anything at all, and then she was passing the baby to Eugene as she said, “Hold Bonnie while I go help your mother.”

Eugene, juggling his beer and the wiggling baby, cursed as he watched her up and move away. He liked Hannah, and she knew it, but the unfortunate result was that she got away with murder. “Hey,” He said, as soothing as he could muster as he righted the baby in his lap. “Bonnie, c’mon.” The baby just stared at him, scrunched up little face both patronising and imperious all at once.

And so the morning went on.

Eugene got roped into more and more childcare as the guests arrived, which he didn’t mind one bit. It kept from the frosty politeness of his brother and parents, and from the boring conversation from the rest of his family. Eugene didn’t like to think he was fast paced or modern, particularly, but listening to Great-Aunt Ida drone on with a forty minute anecdote about her physician truly made him feel so. 

“Talkin’ like Yankee.” His uncle had said, gruff as he came to hand Eugene off another beer over the top of Bonnie’s curly little head. 

“I live in the West, actually.” Eugene replied, polite, taking a long swig of the beer as his uncle moved away. God, he needed it.

The jostle of the steadily growing party was both a blessing and a curse. It dragged Eugene’s mind from where it had been stuck the last few days, in endless loops of guilt and shame and raw anger at the whole damn situation. The presence of family who didn’t know a thing about the whole debacle with him and Snafu had eased the temperature of the house a little, but Eugene was beginning to sweat under the sheer number of guests. He wasn’t like Snafu with crowds, or loud noises, he didn’t have quite so much of a hair trigger with it all. It was more of a creeping unpleasantness, his heart rate running up, his movements and thoughts jerky and more paranoid the less he could keep track of it all. It made him feel distinctly _itchy_ , no matter how many trips to the bathroom he took to breathe and stare at his pale, blotchy face in the mirror.

Thankfully, around noon Sid turned up, Mary in tow. Sid took one look at him, room temperature beer clenched in his shaky hand, and said, “Gene, smoke outside?”

Eugene nodded fervently, already halfway to the door before Sid could follow.

Outside was blessedly empty, and Eugene led Sid right around the side of the house until he hit the end of the porch. He fetched up against the wall, Sid stood, and both of them took a moment to light a cigarette.

“Mary doesn’t know.” Sid said, covering his mouth as he cleared his throat. “She doesn’t like the taste.”

“High days and holidays.” Eugene reminded him, the taste of Snafu after a cigarette heavy in his mind. 

“Quite right.” Sid said, voice laced with a satisfaction that Eugene may have found attractive, once. 

The morning was lapsing into the kind of bright, clear afternoon that Eugene always associated with Christmas. The effect of the party inside was still lingering, an oil slick on his skin, and he took a deep drag off his purloined cigarette to dispel it. He wondered how Snafu was faring, waking up on Christmas morning alone, and then had to dismiss that thought as it grew too painful. There was a well of sadness opening up in his chest under the press of the beers he had drank, under the weight of what he had done. He missed Snafu, it was simple. No need for anything more: it was pure heartache and it stung like a slap to the face.

“How goes it?” Sid asked, because he somehow always knew the right moment to interrupt Eugene in a spiral of negative thoughts. It was one of his better qualities. 

Eugene took him in, backlit by the waning sun, blonde curls an unruly halo around his head. “Not great.” He said, and left it at that. Sid nodded, exhaled smoke away from him with a polite tip of his head. “You?”

“Francine’s been running a fever since yesterday.” He said, grimacing as he regarded the cigarette in his hand. Francine was his daughter, a precocious toddler with Sid’s button nose. “Gonna get your old man to have a look at her.”

“He’ll set her right.” Eugene murmured, and took a swig of his beer. Sid hummed, and when Eugene glanced up he was looking at Eugene with a searching expression on his face. “What?” Eugene asked.

Sid just shrugged, glanced down as he knocked the toe of his shoe against the rusted, wrought iron legs of the rather disused bench that took up the end of the porch. “Ditched the pipe?” He asked, and smiled slightly as surprise passed over Eugene’s face.

“I guess so.” He said, wonderingly. He couldn’t quite pinpoint when he’d stopped smoking that thing, that odd reminder of war that was equal parts a comfort and portentous token. “S’pose it just got old.” He added, “Lotta work.”

“‘S easy to pick up cigarettes if they’re around the house.” Sid said carefully, and Eugene watched as he moved to take a seat on the bench, face turned towards the grounds of the house as he pulled a knee against his chest. He looked achingly boyish, so far from the boy who had shipped out before Eugene all those years ago, but still as curly headed and pink cheeked, all legs and elbows and skinny wrists. It was no wonder Eugene had been so sweet on him, he thought.

“I s’pose so.” He murmured, guarded. 

Sid inclined his head. “How is he?” He asked, not looking up. “Noticed he ain’t here.”

Eugene tipped his head back, the crown of his head to the sun-warmed wood of the house. “He wouldn’t come.” He said, marvelling in how much easier this was with Sid compared to his brother. “My parents.” He added, by way of explanation, and Sid hummed consideringly. 

“So all that’s still goin’ on, huh?” Sid asked, and Eugene kept his eyes fixed on the cobwebbed porch ceiling as he weighed his response in his head. 

“Yeah.” He said, finally, because there was nothing to hide from Sid, not really. “Been going on for a while now.” Admitting it to Sid didn’t feel as sickly scary as it had been admitting it to his brother. It was their summers together, their friendship, the curious kisses traded in secret and always broken by embarrassed, nervous laughter. 

Sid just hummed, and when Eugene risked a glance his way, he was staring off across the lawn with a pensive expression. His cigarette was burning forgotten between his fingers, a growing pillar of ash sprouting from the top of it. Eugene watched as he shifted, and the ash tumbled messily down the legs of his nice black slacks. “You mad at him?” He asked, turning to catch Eugene’s eye, unaware of the mess on his pants. Eugene took a quick drag off his cigarette, tugging a little at the high knot of his tie as he turned that question over in his head.

“I don’t even see how it can be fair to be angry.” Eugene said, quickly, like if he didn’t get it out in time the moment would pass. He loved Snafu and he trusted him but God knows their lifestyle was something that felt terribly isolating most of the time. “They’re-” He gestured helplessly towards the house, lost for words. “It’s like I couldn’t see it before.”

Sid’s gaze sharpened a little. “Your parents know?”

Eugene shrugged, dropping his gaze to the floor. “They know enough to ask Ed to speak to me about it.” He could hear the sound of more guests arriving, the roll of wheels on the gravel of their driveway, the chatter of voices. The thought of _more_ people made his head swim a little, and he took a seat on the creaky old bench next to Sid as he pitched his cigarette butt over the railings of the porch. “Ed asked and I told him, I don’t know whether he’s passed it on yet.”

“You told Ed?” Sid asked, crushing his forgotten cigarette out in the plant pot by his shoe. Eugene couldn’t see his face to properly read his tone, but when he resurfaced he was grinning. “That’s guts.”

“He asked.” Eugene muttered, slouching back into the bench. “Well,” He amended, tipping his head to the side. “I think he was tryna work out whether it was ‘cos of the war.”

Sid laughed, elbow on his knee and chin in his hand as he gazed at Eugene. “Sure had you figured wrong then.” 

“Little did he know.” Eugene said, dryly. It felt better to treat it like a joke than to acknowledge the fear and the hurt of that unsteady, drunken confession. Like he and Sid were kids again, ganging up on Edward just because that’s what younger brothers _did_. 

“Good to know we got away with it.” The corner of Sid’s mouth quirked in a smile as Eugene laughed. Those sunlit days of their youth were definitely gone now. Teasing his brother, playing pranks, getting underfoot out of the sheer heady boredom of a long, hot summer. Then, older, kissing Sid, kissing girls, working out exactly what was going on inside of him in that analytical way he’d always had. Less of a blessing and more of a curse: he was sure he’d bounce back quicker from the way his brother had reacted if his brain wasn’t so prone to overheating. 

“Cut it out.” He muttered, feeling himself unwind a little. He’d been tense since he’d gotten home, anxiety and guilt curling under his skin and drawing his muscles tighter and tighter. It felt like a weight off his shoulders to laugh a little, to speak about this as openly as he could without someone who on some level could understand it. 

“Your mother would drop dead if she knew what we used to get up to.” Sid murmured, scrubbing his hand over his mouth as he dropped his eyes to the floor. Eugene snorted, eyes off on the middle distance as he ruminated on his and Sid’s adolescent fooling around. 

“She wouldn’t believe us.” He said, distantly. Again, the unbidden thought, _will I ever be forgiven?_

They sat in companionable silence for a minute, until Eugene pulled another cigarette out for each of them, and sat back to let Sid fill him in on the last few months. It was all achingly domestic: his and Mary’s plans for a child, the new woodshed that Sid had been testing the limits of his handiness on lately, all the small, petty drama of their insular little circle. 

“It feels so weird bein’ away from it all.” Eugene commented, checking his watch as he did so. It was almost time to eat, and Eugene knew his mother must be looking for him but couldn’t bring himself to care much. 

“Guess you two have a pretty charmed life out there.” Sid said, shooting a sly look Eugene’s way. “Sun, sea, as much stayin’ out late as you like.” He sounded almost wistful. “No responsibilities.” 

“We’ve got a cat now.” Eugene murmured, and shrugged at the questioning expression Sid shot him. “Snafu don’t like pets, but he loves that cat.” He tipped his head to the side, eyes on his hands as he picked at his nails. “He don’t like much else in San Francisco, to tell you the truth.”

“Why’d you say that?” Sid asked, and Eugene exhaled loudly, shrugged. It suddenly felt wrong to speak to Sid about this, like he was airing his and Snafu’s dirty laundry for the whole world to see. Like he was breaking the trust Snafu had in him by letting a third party peek into their relationship like this. He wasn’t used to it, he never got the chance to talk about any bumps in the road of their relationship with anyone but Snafu, and the thought of doing so was more than a little distasteful. What he and Snafu had was not something to be spoken about, not unless it was behind closed doors with likeminded people, and so opening up any further about it with Sid felt like a betrayal. 

“I don’t know if I should.” He said, finally, refocusing. “Talk about it, I mean.” Eugene’s words felt clumsy, stilted. He’d torn a strip of skin away from his cuticle, and it stung in the open air, blood blooming to the surface. 

“‘S not gonna go anywhere but my ears.” Sid said, eyes following the path of Eugene’s hand as he raised it to stick his bleeding thumb in his mouth. “No harm here. I can tell you got something on your mind.”

“I just don’t know how to say it.” Eugene blurted, eyes fixed on his hands so he didn’t have to see the concern that was no doubt moving across Sid’s face. “Shit, if my own brother-” He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t need to. He squeezed his eyes shut, twisting his fingers together until his knuckles ached. “‘S not safe.” 

Sid was silent for a long time, and Eugene didn’t look up, didn’t speak, didn’t _breathe_. “Thought we left all that fear behind, Gene.” Sid murmured, eventually, and Eugene risked a quick, sidelong look at him. His eyes were unfocused, staring off into nothing, face set into something quiet and sad.

“Traded it in.” Eugene offered, surprising himself with the tightness in his throat. Sid looked at him then, and Eugene ducked his head. “It ain’t always this bad.” He said, “Just learning to be careful, is all.”

“Just want you to know I ain’t your brother.” 

“I know that.” Eugene said, and laughed at the absurdity of it. “Thank God, I know that.”

“And I ain’t gonna rat you out.” Sid continued, like Eugene hadn’t said anything. “But you look like shit, Gene, and you ain’t ever been a noon drinker. You got something on your mind, and Snafu ain’t here, and you’re clammin’ up like something bad’s gonna happen for speaking your problems.”

Silence flooded in to fill the gap Sid’s words had left. The drifting sounds of the party, someone banging away at Eugene’s mother’s little upright piano, the warbling of singing. Eugene watched a bird sweep low over the grounds of the house, a cardinal. He followed its bright little body until it was out of sight, and took a deep breath in, exhaled. There was always something striking about a bird in flight, something centering, peaceful, and oddly melancholy. The little Christmas-red bird had knocked something loose in him, and Eugene scrubbed a hand over his face with a sigh, aware of the weight of Sid’s knee against his own, the warmth of the weak winter sun on his back. 

“I can’t even begin to explain how it feels to have to keep something like this.” He murmured, pressing his fingertips into his eyes until he saw stars. “He deserves to be more than a secret.”

“Did something happen?”

Eugene shrugged, focusing on the feeling of his elbows pressing hard into his bony knees instead of anything else. “Just the fight.” He said, quiet. “He wouldn’t come.”

“You told me that.” Sid murmured, his voice gentle. “What’s really going on?”

“I don’t know.” Eugene replied, digging deep within the well inside himself that harboured all the swirling fear and resentment and guilt and sadness from the long years since the war. “It’s everything.” His voice was steady, mind fixed on the meeting of elbow to knee, of palm to stubbled jaw. “I ain’t ever felt so far away from him. Even when he left, it weren’t so bad because there wasn’t this,” He cast around for the right word, eyes unfocused on the middle distance. He shook his head. “ _Pressure_.”

“Pressure for what?” Sid asked, and Eugene grunted.

“If I knew I think I could close the gap.” He murmured, “I could apologise for everything.”

“You ever thought it ain’t just you who needs to be apologising?” Sid’s voice was careful, and Eugene flicked his eyes to meet Sid’s just to gauge what the emotion was behind that question. Accusation? Pity? Eugene couldn’t see anything, but his brother’s silent betrayal had gotten his hackles up and it was hard not to take everything for something negative. He forced himself to relax again, thought about the sleek grace of the cardinal, the quiet beauty.

“I left him at home.” Eugene said, “and he’s _sick_. Just ‘cus I got so wrapped up in selfish shit. Couldn’t even see how my parents treated him until now, until I got the same.” He bit his tongue, then, to halt the steady roll of words that were somehow coming too easy to him. He’d almost said it, he’d almost let slip the horrible, evil little half-thought that creeped up inside him sometimes. _They should hate it because it’s wrong._ God, it sounded like his Sunday school teacher. It made his skin crawl with the potential for how badly he could hurt Snafu if it slipped out. It was his own cross to bear, no matter how inappropriate or on the nose that saying was. 

“It’s a lot.” He said, in summary, shooting Sid a weak smile as he clapped him on the back.

“I’m not gonna presume to know what it’s all about.” Sid began, leaning forward as he put his elbows on his knees, clasping his hands together in front of him. Eugene watched the nervous twist of his fingers, and wondered what exactly he had done to deserve a friend like Sid. “But if he makes you happy,” Sid cut his eyes to Eugene, and shrugged. “How can it be anything bad?”

“Well,” Eugene said, a little lost for words. The rush of his mad, guilty, sin-obsessed thoughts hushed. He sat back. “I ain’t ever thought about it like that.”

“Does he make you happy?” Sid asked, and Eugene tilted his head to the side, considering.

It wasn’t an instantaneous answer, because Eugene wasn’t the sort to make knee-jerk statements, much less about Snafu. But the longer he ruminated on it, on their time together and the things that made them all they were, the good and the bad, the clouds began to part. “Yeah,” Eugene murmured, “Yeah, of course.”

Snafu, backlit by the waning sun through their kitchen window, a dismantled clock in front of him. Singing in the shower, off tune but enthusiastic. That horrible, soft plaid jacket and the smell of motor oil, the way he smiled at Eugene when Eugene said something that really made him laugh. The way he looked when Eugene caught him gazing at him, all soft and comfortable, eyes heavy lidded like a content cat. It wasn’t even about the things that Snafu did for him, he loved every inch of Snafu that was hard headed and difficult and indelicate and moody just as much as he loved the Snafu who cooked for him, and comforted him. Even when Snafu clammed up tight, that inward hate blooming from him but refusing to let himself be coaxed out of it. Even the waking nightmares, the smoking, the past that made him cagey and angry and quick to bite. 

“Yeah, I can tell.” Sid said, satisfaction in his voice. It pulled Eugene out of his reveries, out of the memory of Snafu’s skin and the way he looked asleep in Eugene’s bed. Sid had his cheek pillowed on his hand, eyes soft on Eugene when he looked. He smiled, and Eugene rubbed at his face embarrassedly.

‘’S just hard.” He admitted, finally halfway able to put words to feeling now. He felt his face turn pink as he added, “Wanna be able to bring him around have him treated like family.”

“Maybe they’ll come ‘round to it.” Sid said. Eugene didn’t reply. “Crazier things’ve happened.” He nudged Eugene in the side. “We both came back from the war after all. That’s a little charmed, huh?”

Eugene felt a grudging smile pull at his mouth. “I guess so.”

“Ain’t nothing that should keep you from being happy.” Sid said, an air of finality in his words. “Life’s short. You know that.” He was right, Eugene felt it settle into his bones. He’d never thought about it like that before. “Can’t be wasting what time we have on bein’ angry with the people who make us happy. That’s how I see it.”

Eugene hummed, turning it over in his head. “You’re right,” He murmured, and then laughed. “When’d you get so smart, Sid?” 

“Can it, Gene.” Sid snorted, shoving his shoulder with his own. “I’ve always been the master of romance. Got Mary, didn’t I?”

“Doubt Mary let herself get ‘got’.” Eugene pointed out, and grinned when Sid punched him good naturedly on the arm.

“Quit it.” Sid said, “‘S Christmas.” 

“I’m a little too Scrooge for it this year.” Eugene said, and Sid just tsk-ed at him. 

“Sure, with that attitude.”

He left Eugene to another cigarette out on the porch, one he didn’t particularly need or want, but one that gave him a little space to be alone for a moment. Solitude was a tricky thing to find in his parents house, even now with the mood a little chilly between them all. He wanted time to ruminate on Sid’s words, the whole life is too short schtick, but on the things the conversation had dredged up on his end too. He plucked his forgotten beer from the windowsill he’d stashed it on, and took a long drink. The fear of no forgiveness was eating him alive, but he wasn’t even sure what he needed forgiveness for. It was forgiveness for leaving, for being angry, for making Snafu choose. For dragging him across the country, and making him fall in love, for not being able to love him back like deserved: openly, without fear.

Maybe it was forgiveness on a grander scale, one that could only be found between the pages of a Bible, or kneeling on the hard, dusty floor of a chapel with those familiar old words in his mouth. Eugene took a drag off his cigarette, eyes on a few younger members of the family playing carefree on the grass. He hadn’t been to church since a few months after his return to the States. The prospect was unpleasant in the same way that cracking his old Bible to read the words he’d jotted down in there during the war was. Some things were best left closed, for better or for worse. God knows the past hadn’t left either one of them alone, there could be nothing good in calling it forth like that. His Bible had been his God in those bloodsoaked years, his fading connection to the bigger picture. Then the madness seeped in and his God became his rifle and he hadn’t been able to reconcile with it since. 

He finished off his beer as he let that uneasy knowledge settle within him, dropped his cigarette butt into the bottle where it extinguished with an audible hiss. If there was one thing that had come from this, this spilling of his guts to the first person who could listen, it was that it had steeled his resolve to return home early. Becoming aware of the exact reasons why Snafu had refused to join him, but being unable to talk it out with Snafu, was painful. Plus, he missed him. It was as simple as that: Eugene missed him so unerringly, so faithfully, that it made no sense to stay away from him any longer. Not with this knowledge, now. Sid’s advice, that invisible ticking clock, the sound of the sands of his life falling away.

If the rifle replaced his Bible, and the bullet replaced his God, then where did Snafu fit into it all?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> super long chapter, i just needed to get this whole convo out without breaking it up because that'd ruin it , probably. sid is bi. eugene is opening his third eye. thank you everyone who is still reading this thing despite how unreliable updates had been the past few weeks while i wrapped school up, you're all true blue and i hope you liked this chapter! back to california in the next one, keep your eyes peeled i love you


	10. Chapter 10

His mom cried when he left, and gave him a hug so tight he was sure she squeezed all the breath from him. “Come back, if you need.” She whispered, right into his ear. He hugged her back, breathing in the smell of her perfume, old flowers, face in her greying hair. “I know you’re a smart boy.” 

_Not smart enough to do what you want me to,_ Eugene thought, stepping out of her hold with a clumsy kiss to her cheek. “Don’t worry, mom,” He said, glancing up to meet his brother’s eyes. “I’ll do just fine.” 

Edward’s expression was reserved, the conversation in the car ride to the airport a little sparse, but he treated Eugene to the second surprisingly heartfelt hug of the morning after he walked Eugene in. 

“None of y’all miss me this much.” Eugene muttered, clapping his brother lightly on the back as a signal for him to let him go. “I know y’all like me out from under your feet.”

“Like you better when you ain’t getting up to something stupid.” Edward said, eyes fixed on some point over Eugene’s shoulder. He shifted uncomfortably, the corner of his mouth pulled to the side as if he was annoyed. 

“Good thing I ain’t.” Eugene replied, voice a little harder than he meant. Edward met his eyes, and the moment stretched, taffy slow. 

“You ain’t never know what’s good for you.” He said, finally, and his voice was full of nothing but resignation. Eugene nodded stiffly, trying to remind himself of what he’d tell Snafu in this situation. _Bite your tongue_. Funny how he found it so hard to follow his own advice. 

“You’re right,” He said, slow. “I came back here, after all.” It was silly, childish, but worth it to watch the frown deepen on his brother’s face. Snafu would’ve liked it, at least. He liked when Eugene stuck up for himself.

His brother didn’t give him another hug goodbye, and Eugene tried to hide the hurt from that as he boarded the plane. This time, he waved away the complimentary drinks, and occupied himself with watching Alabama drop away from him. It was an odd feeling, something close to relief but not quite. Disappointment, perhaps, or embarrassment. The defeat of coming home, of knowing he hadn’t won the argument. He’d always had an inkling that this holiday break might end in this, coming home with his tail between his legs. He hoped Snafu would be understanding. He hoped he wasn’t still angry with him. 

Getting through security and into the taxi home was pure muscle memory. Eugene felt as though he was in a daze, anxiety and anticipation fluttering in his stomach and in his throat. He got the cab driver to stop on their way through Chinatown, to grab some food for Snafu and him, as he was sure Snafu hadn’t been eating. Waiting in the line, bouncing nervously on the balls of his feet, it occured to Eugene that is this how his homecoming in Alabama should have felt. Nerves and excitement mingling just well enough that an almost pleasant kind of anxiety gripped him. He couldn’t wait to hold Snafu again, to hear his voice, to kiss him. 

Putting his key in the front door of their apartment left a calm to settle over him. The nerves were washed away by the familiar sticking of the door in the frame, and he grinned to himself as he set his shoulder to the door and nudged it open.

“Snafu?” He called, setting his bags down by the door as he pulled off his shoes one by one, wobbling in the hallway. “Snaf?”

He’d expected Snafu to be posted up in his regular spot in his horrible armchair, cigarette in one hand, book in the other or ear trained to the wireless. The living room was empty, the blinds pulled closed on all the windows. Eugene wandered further into the room, checking his watch as he did so. It was so out of character for Snafu not to be up with the sun that he felt a prickle of worry come over him. He touched his finger to the coffee maker, full but stone cold, took a peek at the cat’s bowl, empty. 

The door to the bedroom was pulled half-closed, and with mounting resignation, Eugene slipped inside. “You goddamn drunk.” He said, playful, as he crossed the dark room to crack the blinds a little. If he hadn’t missed Snafu so much, he would’ve ripped them open and subjected him to the sunlight on his tender, hungover head. “Missed me?” The lump on the bed that was Snafu barely moved. Eugene frowned. “Snafu?”

“Turn the fuckin’ light off.” Snafu mumbled, finally, words slurring together. Eugene crossed to Snafu’s side of the bed, dropped to his knees just as Snafu shifted, tugged the duvet over his head. “‘S been the new year, already?” He sounded confused, out of it, and the fact that he let Eugene tug the sheets back from his face with so little effort made that creeping worry wash back over him. “Did I miss it?”

His eyes were glazed, confused and drifting, like he could barely see Eugene. In the dim light of the room, Eugene could see he was flushed and shivering, blotches of red high up on his cheeks. “Oh, Snafu.” Eugene murmured, brushing his hair back off his sweaty forehead. “You stupid thing.”

Snafu just shut his eyes, mouth tugging down miserably as he pressed his face into the sweat soaked pillow under his head. He was bare chested under the sheet, his arms locked around his middle as if that would keep him from freezing. When Eugene pressed his lips to his forehead, he was burning up. No wonder the apartment didn’t look lived in. Snafu had probably been sweating out this fever since Christmas, by the look of the accumulated cups, the full ashtray by the bed. 

“Let’s get you in the bath.” Eugene murmured, and it was a testament to how weak Snafu was that Eugene was able to drag him out of bed and into their little en suite. He looked skinnier than he had been when Eugene had left. Closer to how he had looked at the start of the summer, all skin and bones like he was during the war. “You been eating?” He asked, and Snafu just grunted, listed to the side a little to press his face to the cool tile of the bathroom wall. Eugene steadied him, afraid he’d topple over while Eugene was busy filling the bath.

“I’ve been throwing up.” Snafu mumbled by way of an answer, voice barely there. His eyes were slits, barely open, watching vacantly as Eugene turned on the faucets. “Are you really here?” He asked, and the naked confusion and want in his voice was painful. Eugene felt his lips tug down, and he stood from his kneeling position by the tub so he could get his arms around Snafu. 

“I’m really here.” He said, Snafu warm and small against his front as he held him. “I’m sorry.” He said, even though he knew his words would be lost on Snafu in his state. He was toeing that fine line before sickness crossed over into feverish euphoria. He could see it in his glazed eyes, the weak slump of his body, his wandering attention. “I should’ve never left.” If this wasn’t a sign, he didn’t know what was. 

“How long?” Snafu asked, head lolling on his shoulders as he let Eugene lead him into the lukewarm water. Eugene turned off the faucet, and the sudden silence after the thundering water was deafening. Snafu settled into the bath, looking wan and sickly in the harsh light of the bathroom, washed out and pale but for the spots of heat in his cheeks and the dark circles around his eyes. There were red welts on his upper arms, like he had scratched himself raw for whatever reason, and Eugene cupped the side of his face protectively, that old guilt rising in him.

“Week and a half,” Eugene told him, “Two. What did you do to yourself?”

Snafu just hummed, eyes unseeing as he drifted. “What?”

“Here.” Eugene said, quiet as he brushed his thumb over the marks. Snafu cracked his eyes open a little bit, and the following eye roll and head shake was so him that Eugene felt comforted for a second. He’d missed him, their reunion had gotten waylaid by finding him so ill in their bed, and Eugene knew he would never get the moment he had been hoping for. But he was here now, and Snafu was all in one piece, mostly. He had to count his blessings.

“Jus’ got too hot,” He mumbled, slipping up to his chin in the water as he closed his eyes. He was still shivering, rippling the surface of the water. “Itchy hot, yanno?” He frowned, cleared his throat a couple times. “Skin too tight-”

Suddenly, he began coughing, a horrible, wracking noise that left him curled over his knees as he struggled to stop. Eugene rubbed his back, trying to soothe him as Snafu fought to catch his breath back, slumping against the head of the bath with a miserable, wheezy noise. He coughed again, weakly, hand coming up to clutch at his ribs like it hurt him. 

“I’m gonna call a doctor.” Eugene said, resolute. Snafu pulled a face, not too far gone to object. That was something, at least. If there came a time where Snafu willingly accepted a doctor poking and prodding at him, then Eugene would be very scared. “No, I am. You’re so sick, Snaf.”

“‘S on it’s way out.” He mumbled, voice shot. His eyes were drifting in his head, following something only he could see. “Only got real bad yesterday.” He shivered, the water rippling with the movement, head lolling on his shoulders. “Jus’ gotta wait for Gene to get back.”

“Oh, Jesus.” Eugene muttered, mostly to himself. He ran bathwater-damp hands through his hair, mind ticking over. “Wait here,” He said, squeezing Snafu’s shoulder. “Please don’t drown.”

The cat had slunk out from wherever he had hidden when he heard Eugene letting himself in, and was prowling around on the countertops, making a racket. Eugene fed him quickly, pouring too much kibble into the bowl and on the floor around it. He cursed, and left it, too concerned with digging through the stacks of useless junk paper on the corkboard by the phone in search of his doctor’s number. In the end he gave up, took a moment to swallow his pride, and dialled his father’s office number. 

“It’s me,” He said, as soon as his father picked up. “Gene.”

There was a long moment of taken aback silence on the other end of the phone, and Eugene was just about to impatiently break it as his father said, slow, “Everything alright, son?”

The absurdity of the bemused confusion in his voice and the fact that Eugene had only said goodbye to him hours before made a laugh bubble up in his throat. He pressed a hand to his face, breathed out slow. “I’m great,” He said, shooing the cat away as he began to sniff at the abandoned boxes of Chinese food on the counter. “It’s Snafu, he’s sick.”

Another long silence, in which Eugene ran through Snafu’s inevitable and dramatic drowning in the bath in his head. “You ain’t got a doctor there?” His father said eventually, words slow, pointed.

“Dad,” Eugene said, letting his desperation come through in his voice a little. “Please. I just got home and he’s so out of it he thinks I ain’t even me.”

“He got a fever?” He asked, and Eugene let out a sigh of relief.

“Yes,” He said hurriedly. “He’s burning up, says he’s been throwing up, ain’t been able to keep anything down. Got a bad cough, but I think he’s been smokin’ too - he was sick before I left. Just a cold.”

He listened as his father rattled off a surprisingly simple list of things to do, one which coalesced into plenty of fluids, and sleep. “Just keep an eye on that fever, and get him to stop smoking, for God’s sake.” His father added, “Getting past a flu is a matter of time and rest.”

“Thank you.” Eugene murmured, and meant it. His father just grumbled, and Eugene clutched the phone, searched for the words he wanted to say. “Honestly, dad. I appreciate it.”

“Just don’t catch it yourself.” His father said, before they exchanged their goodbyes and hung up. Eugene stood there, feeling vaguely helpless for a second, in their quiet, darkening apartment, before he clattered the phone back into its cradle and went to go see what Snafu was up to.

He hadn’t drowned, but he had managed to throw up in the toilet, which was incredibly neat of him considering how he usually was when he was healthy, let alone sick. 

“Got too hot.” He muttered, shivering and perched on the side of the bath, a towel thrown around himself. He pressed his hands to his face, looking so hunched and small that Eugene couldn’t do anything but kneel down on the damp bathroom floor and hold him.

“I missed you so much.” He murmured, rocking Snafu slightly as he tried to soothe the shaky half-sobs that Snafu’s breathing was hitching into. “I’m so sorry.”

“I feel like _hell_.” Snafu said, sounding so unlike himself: miserable and self-pitying and tired. “Can’t even tell which way is up.”

He seemed more alert than he had when he had forgotten who Eugene was, more lucid, which Eugene chose to take as a good sign. With some effort the two of them made their weaving way into the kitchen, where Eugene deposited Snafu on the couch with a glass of water before he made short work of stripping the bed and remaking it. 

“Are you back for good?” Snafu asked, voice small and red rimmed eyes huge in his face as he watched Eugene walk by with a bundle of dirty bedding. “You ain’t leaving again?”

Eugene tossed the laundry in the basket before coming to cup Snafu’s face in his hands. “I’m back for good.” He said, stroking his thumbs down Snafu’s stubbly cheeks. “I’m gonna get you feelin’ better.”

It was almost disquieting how easily Snafu let Eugene look after him. He’d never seen Snafu so biddable, and he decided not long after that he hated it. Snafu was caught between moments of lucidity in which he was more alert and more himself, but painfully, obviously _not well_ , and moments of fevered confusion in which he forgot that Eugene was back, or where he was, only able to lay his head on Eugene’s shoulder and drift in and out of sleep.

“Thank you, sugar.” Snafu murmured, hands coming up for the broth Eugene had been slowly filling him up with since he’d gotten settled at home and gotten his head on a little straighter. He was out of it again, but sweet, which made up for the early hour of the morning.

Leaving Mobile that morning seemed like a lifetime ago, and Eugene was glad for it. Despite Snafu’s state, he felt lighter than he had since he had last stood in their apartment. Curled up on the couch with the warm weight of Snafu against his chest was where he was supposed to be, he was more sure of it than ever. “Once you’re better, we gotta talk about some stuff.” He murmured, nose in Snafu’s hair. Snafu hummed, one hand coming back to pat Eugene’s arm.

“Sure.” He said, sounding drowsy. “‘Bout what?” He added, and Eugene hid a smile in his curls, tightened his arms around Snafu’s chest.

“Christmas.” He said, “How I acted. My family, all of it.”

“I forgave you as soon as you stepped out that door.” Snafu drawled, tipping his head back against Eugene’s shoulder. “Ain’t your fault.” He added, quieter, obviously running out of steam. 

“We’ll talk about it.” Eugene said, firm, more for himself than the rapidly falling into a doze Snafu. Carefully, he wrangled the mug of broth from Snafu’s slack hands. “C’mon, let’s get you into bed.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> finally, i'm back! apologies for delays on chapters STILL - i just went full time at my job now i've graduated, so it's been tricky to fit in writing around that, but i'm getting used to it! enjoy the chapter, only a couple more left now i think!


	11. Chapter 11

Over the next couple days, Snafu began to steadily get better. Less feverish, at the very least: he still felt as rough as he had, and didn’t hesitate in telling Eugene just how terrible he felt. Eugene felt for him, he really did, but Snafu with all his guards down was a strange new creature, and he was still working out how to get used to it. 

One night, a day or so after Snafu’s fever had broken, Eugene had gone to place a glass of water on Snafu’s bedside table only to be stopped from moving away by Snafu’s hand around his wrist. “Gene,” Snafu had murmured, words slurred with sickness and sleep. “Babe.”

“What is it, Snaf?” Eugene felt the fingers around his wrist tighten imperceptibly, akin to Snafu tugging him closer, so he leaned in. “Snafu?”

“Marry me.” Snafu had murmured, half asleep, out of it, sounding so deeply sincere that Eugene was left speechless for a minute. “Promise.”

Listening to him say these things felt like the oddest kind of violation, because Eugene knew very well that he wouldn’t be hearing them if Snafu was in his right mind. But at the same time, his verbal slip ups assuaged so many of Eugene’s doubts that he filed them away hungrily for the next time he felt unsure and anxious about his footing with Snafu.

“I promise.” He said, soft, mostly because he was sure Snafu wouldn’t remember, and partly because it felt so wonderful to say and to let his mind settle on the very idea. I could never happen, _would_ never happen, but the thought was so pleasant he spent the rest of the night mooning around the house thinking about it. Later, when he came to bed to find a very warm, fast asleep Snafu, he curled up against his back, tucked his face down against the nape of his neck. He smelt sleep-warm and familiar, like sweat and skin, and Eugene took advantage of Snafu’s deep sleep to reach for his hand, to stroke his thumb over Snafu’s ring finger. Love was fluttering in his chest like a baby bird, small and hopeful and _alive_. They still had so much to go through, so much to talk about that Snafu’s sickness had interrupted. Over the last few days, Eugene had felt at times so uncertain of what kind of emotions their delayed talk would bring out that it teetered dangerously on dread. 

Snafu shifted in his sleep, hand turning unconsciously to grasp hold of Eugene’s, to draw it close to his chest. Eugene let him do it, heart in his mouth as love welled up in him. Their little pocket of space under the duvet was warm, comforting, the smells of their home around him. As he laid there, lulled drowsy by the sound of Snafu’s breaths, Eugene knew that no matter what their eventual conversation would bring, it would be nothing that could break them apart. Not even the war had been able to do that, the two of them staying stubbornly alive and by each other's side through it all. If the sand and the bullets and the ruinous waste of youth hadn’t been able to do it, God knows nothing else could. 

When Eugene woke the next morning, Snafu was still curled up next to him, sleeping the sleep of the sick. Red flushed cheeks, a little frown pulling his brows together, absolutely dead to the world. Eugene watched him for a little while, thumb to the fat of his warm, stubbled cheek, before leaving him to go shower, shave, make breakfast. 

Another check on Snafu proved him still soundly asleep, so Eugene dressed sloppily, fed the cat, and took a brisk walk to the bakers for some of those jam pastries Snafu loved. Eugene was trying to encourage his appetite to return, and it certainly wasn’t going to happen if he kept forcing chicken soup and bone broth on him. It was New Year’s Eve, and the air was fresh and bracing on Eugene’s face, smelling of the sea and the city. It felt like a new start was just around the corner, or maybe Eugene was becoming finally infected by the holiday spirit. 

Snafu was awake when Eugene came home, sitting on one end of the couch with the cat on the other, groggily flipping through the newspaper. The room smelled like coffee, the quiet gurgle of the coffee maker the only noise past the low murmur of the wireless. Eugene didn’t say anything, just dropped the bag of still-warm pastries onto the coffee table, and bent down for a kiss. Snafu responded slowly, evidently still waking up.

“Asprin?” Eugene asked, running a hand through Snafu’s curls. 

“‘M feeling better today.” Snafu mumbled, voice hoarse. He cleared his throat, and grimaced. “I think.”

“I bought you those little puff pastry things you like.” Eugene said, moving away to fetch the asprin. He heard Snafu made a grateful little noise behind him, and then the rustling of paper.

“Fuck, I missed solid food.” 

“If you can swallow it.” Eugene set a glass of water down on the coffee table, and Snafu motioned with his hand until Eugene set it on a coaster.

“I didn’t put all that hard work varnishin’ this for you to ruin it.” Snafu grumbled, but accepted a kiss from Eugene as he came to sit down all the same. 

“You didn’t do it for me.” Eugene retorted, and plucked a pastry from the bag sitting in Snafu’s lap. “But it’s good to see you soundin’ more like yourself.”

Snafu blinked at him slowly, all hollow eyes and overlong hair. “What d’you mean by that?” He asked, and a grin spread across his face as Eugene laughed. “You sayin’ I’m mean, boo?”

“I’m sayin’ you’re grouchy.” Eugene said, and pushed Snafu’s hair back off his face. “And you need a haircut.”

“I should let myself go and get sick more often if this is how you’re gonna be. Sweets, haircuts.” Snafu popped the last of his pastry in his mouth, and sucked the grease off his fingers as he let Eugene tilt his head this way and that. “You gonna clean me up or what?”

Eugene let Snafu lead him to the bathroom and arm him with their electric razor. It just felt so good not to be fighting again, for Snafu to not be so weak and delirious and quiet, that he found himself basking in it. This is why he came home. This is why home was _home_. Snafu’s freckled bare shoulders, the sweet curve of his neck. He’d shed his shirt, slung it over the shower curtain rail before taking a seat on the kitchen chair he’d dragged through. It was familiar, and Eugene smiled to himself as he ran his fingers through Snafu’s curls, remembering the last time he’d done this for him. 

“Dunno why I started goin’ to the barbers.” Snafu said, tilting his head forward as his eyes slid closed at the touch of Eugene’s fingers to his nape. He was still warm to the touch, not quite feverish anymore but his body was still working to burn the sickness from him. He sounded almost drowsy when he murmured, “Lemme have a smoke?” His fingers twitched where they were resting on his thighs, that nervous nicotine tic. 

“No way in hell.” Eugene said, the razor buzzing to life in his hand as he flicked it on. “Maybe that can be your New Year resolution.”

“No way in hell.” Snafu parroted, letting Eugene tilt his head to get the razor close behind his ear. “My resolution ain’t so cut and dried.”

“You thought about one?” Eugene asked, focus half on the conversation and half on Snafu’s unruly head of hair. He smoothed some fallen hair from his shoulders, and Snafu shivered. “Ain’t like you.”

“Sure.” Snafu said, quiet under the buzzing of the razor. “Had a lotta time to think on stuff.” 

“Yeah?” Eugene asked, biting back the words suddenly scrambling to get out of his throat. His long, drunken, sleepless nights. The long periods of introspection. The feelings of disconnect, the feelings of lost family, of new family, of guilt and loss and love. Snafu needed urging, coaxing, the half-wild thing that he was. Words didn’t come easy and so Eugene had learned well in the years he had known him when to drop back in a conversation, let silence flow, let Snafu fill it in his own time. 

He shaved away at the back of Snafu’s head for a few minutes, before excusing himself to grab a pair of clumsy scissors from the kitchen drawer. He didn’t speak, just set to work snipping away the curls at the top of Snafu’s head in silence. The quiet was deafening without the cushion of the noise of the razor. Snafu was scratching at the wood of the chair, the underside, where his hands were gripped around the seat. Eugene could hear it in the tiny, silent room, like the sound of mice in the walls. His gaze was fixed studiously ahead, Eugene could see him in the medicine cabinet mirror, could see him pursing his lips, that old sign of the cogs turning in his mind.

“The fever made it hard to work ‘round things in my head.” Snafu said eventually, voice thoughtful and slow. “Kept doublin’ back on thoughts and gettin’ caught up in shit and sleepin’ and forgettin’ and that.” He rubbed at his nose with the heel of his hand, and sniffed. “Just kept comin’ back to why I stayed outta your way in the first place.”

His tone was light enough that the dredging up of their long years apart didn’t sting. It didn’t feel like a threat of a return to it, and so Eugene kept placidly snipping away at Snafu’s hair in silence. Snafu shifted a little in his seat, shoulders tense up around his ears now. Normally getting answers or explanations from Snafu was like drawing blood from a stone, a dance between the two of them in whether Eugene had more patience or Snafu more stamina in being avoidant. Eugene couldn’t blame Snafu’s new candidness on anything more than his sickness, or perhaps their time apart had really given him the space to think.

“‘S that same old fear of cuttin’ you off from everyone you know,” Snafu continued, “Keepin’ you from everything ‘cos they won’t approve of me and won’t approve of me with _you_. This whole mess of bein’ queer and draggin’ you right into it.”

“It ain’t like that.” Eugene said, quiet, unable to stop himself interjecting. He’d stopped cutting Snafu’s hair at some point, and was just standing uselessly behind him, watching the tense line of his bare shoulders and his knotted fingers in his lap.

“But I know that fear ain’t right because lovin’ you like I do can’t be anything evil. What hurt most about you leavin’ weren’t the bein’ alone but the thought of you thinkin’ it was _right_.” Snafu said, ignoring him. “You thought it was right that I didn’t go ‘cos you think it’s right that your parents hate me for turning you queer.”

Snafu’s head was bowed over his lap, and the lack of fight in him was surprising. Eugene took a seat on the edge of the tub, set the scissors down next to him. “It ain’t like that.” He repeated, uncomfortable, pinned in place like a mounted butterfly. “It ain’t like I relish in that they don’t like you.”

“Never said you did.” Snafu said, a slight edge to his voice now. He didn’t turn in his seat to look at Eugene, which Eugene was somewhat grateful for. Wasn’t it always easier to have a conversation with no eye contact? He cast his gaze to the ground, let the silence swell between them. “I’ve always been shit scared that you ain’t living a normal life ‘cos of me.” Snafu said, in that honey-thick drawl of his that Eugene loved so much. “Always feelin’ like I’m ruinin’ you. And you don’t help it by acting like you did.”

Eugene rubbed his fingertip over the scabbed skin above his cuticle, the casualty from his conversation with Sid. “You’re right.” He said, “I was wrong.”

Snafu began to say something, didn’t get past the first word before he doubled over in a fit of coughing. Eugene sat and waited for it to pass, helpless, the stake of dread driving deeper into his chest. “I just-” He cleared his throat, hand pressed to his chest as he turned slightly in the chair. He grimaced. “There’s been this disconnect between us openin’ up and up and I didn’t know how to close it ‘cos it felt like it was all comin’ from in here.” He tapped his bony chest, eyes still fixed on the wall. His profile didn’t give much away beyond the tightness of his jaw, not with those big, expressive eyes cast away. Eugene wanted to gather him close almost as much as he wanted to hear him out. “Felt all evil and black on the inside with how upset you was leavin’ me here. Like I was makin’ you choose between me an’ your family, and you chose the ones who hate the part of you that loves me.” His eyes drifted then, finally, finally to Eugene’s face. “You know how that feels, Gene?”

“I don’t.” Eugene said, voice small.

Snafu cut his eyes away, lip curling a little. “Makes a person feel lower than fuckin’ dirt.” 

They sat in silence for a long, dragging moment. Snafu was picking at his cuticles, and wordlessly Eugene handed him the half-crushed pack of smokes from his back pocket. He knew he shouldn’t, not with the flu still clinging onto him, but Snafu looked like he needed it. Snafu took them without looking at Eugene, his eyes downcast as he struck a match from the book tucked into the pack. The flame flared, cast his face ghoulish in the odd bathroom lighting, and then died. The guilt had driven its way into Eugene’s chest, burning between his ribs. 

“I’m sorry.” Snafu said, eventually, more shocking than all the words that has just poured out of him. He rubbed his nose with the back of his hand, and cleared his throat. “Sorry, boo.”

“I should be the one apologising.” Eugene said, quiet. He couldn’t bear to look up, couldn’t bear to see distaste on Snafu’s face. “Makin’ you feel like that.”

“No way for you to know.” Snafu muttered, and passed Eugene his cigarette. Wordlessly, he took it, and took solace in the lack of anger in Snafu’s voice. _This had to happen_ , he told himself. _This is the end of fighting._

“I ain’t a mind reader.” Eugene agreed, and took a drag. “But I had a feeling.”

Snafu’s hand crept to his knee, the two of them so close in their little en suite, the emotional gulf healing steadily. Eugene knew exactly what Snafu meant by a disconnect. He had been feeling it too, in the helpless guilt he had been feeling for so long now, how he found himself lost for words of comfort, how their long, twilight-lit conversations of the summer had dwindled and dwindled. Silently, Eugene laid his hand over Snafu’s, and squeezed.

“Why don’t you see they ain’t right?” Snafu asked, quietly, and Eugene didn't have to clarify to know that he was talking about Eugene’s parents. He thought of his and Edward’s conversation on that starless, drunken night. His mother’s tears when he left. 

“I do now.” He murmured, eyes on their linked hands. He passed the cigarette back. “Took me goin’ back there, but I know it.” He tilted his head consideringly. “I think I do, anyway. Ain’t so easy when it’s family.”

“You don’t owe ‘em shit.” Snafu said, irritatingly dismissive, and Eugene just snorted.

“Maybe not to you.” He said, “It ain’t the same for everybody.”

“You don’t have to put up with it.”

“They’re my _parents_.” Eugene said, firmly, miserably, finally glancing up to fix Snafu with a look that he hoped communicated how badly he wanted to move on from that particular line of conversation. Snafu held his gaze, his fingers tightening slightly around Eugene’s. He wasn’t even smoking the cigarette, really, just clutching it like it was a comfort. “And you didn’t have to leave me find out that they was wrong all alone.” He felt the corners of his mouth tug down, that unavoidable urge to cry. “It was awful.” He murmured, and Snafu’s gaze softened. 

“C’mere,” He murmured, all hoarse and sweet. Eugene folded into his arms like he’d never left, pressed his face into the hollow of Snafu’s neck where he always smelled the same. It was beginning to feel like he’d finally come home, from Alabama, from wherever his head had been off the past few months. “I’m sorry.” Snafu murmured, “I know I think I know it all sometimes. I forget most people didn’t have the same life as me.”

He was right. Snafu had grown up so quickly out of necessity, up and out of childhood, the home, and then finally most societal expectations decent people had. He seemed untethered in this world, so much as though he had sprung fully formed from somewhere that Eugene forgot how much it must’ve hurt. How much it _still_ must hurt. 

“What’s this gotta do with resolutions?” He murmured, drawing away from Snafu. Snafu just shrugged, gaze following Eugene. 

“Like I said, mine ain’t so cut and dried.” At Eugene’s raised eyebrows, Snafu took a drag off his cigarette, his free hand settling into his newly short curls as he furrowed his brow in thought. “Jus’ wanna work on us.” He said, eyes downcast as he drew his fingers through his hair. “I jus’ wanna fix things. We ain’t never had a long time together during peacetime, and I think we’re still bogged right down in the war so far we can’t even see the horizon.” He pouted, met Eugene’s curious gaze. “Need’ta learn to be together like normal people now.” 

“You wanna be normal?” Eugene asked, and a small, wry smile crept onto Snafu’s face. “Us? Normal?”

“As normal as we can get.” Snafu murmured, glancing down as if embarrassed. He’d said a lot, far more than he’d said in so long to Eugene. He supposed that was at the centre of this gap between them, less twilight ramblings on the steps of Eugene’s porch, fewer moments made less personal and intense by the deepening night around them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter is the last one! thanks for reading :^)


	12. Chapter 12

The New Year fireworks started later that night, after a long and languid lovemaking session that was equal parts reunion and celebration. Snafu, still as sickly as ever, had fallen asleep right after, only to be awoken rudely by the sounds of the fireworks. It only took one panicked, clammy hand finding its too-hard grip on Eugene’s bicep for him to shed any kind of post-coital peace that had settled between them.

The world ticked over into a brand new year as Eugene brushed sweaty hair back from Snafu’s forehead, listening to his panicked breaths as he murmured to him. _Are you happy?_ The thought flitted fast across his mind, too quick to catch, and it was only during a blessed lull of silence that Eugene let himself ruminate on that. Normalcy. Happiness. Wasn’t that too far from their reach, now? He brushed a tear from Snafu’s stubbled jaw. It wasn’t Snafu, it wasn’t San Francisco, it wasn’t even Eugene himself. It was the war, and everything since had been damage control for the ever building mental landslide it had begun.

“Let’s have a better year.” Eugene said, at last. 

“Every year’s better ‘til it ain’t.” Snafu breathed, face tucked against Eugene’s stomach, his knees to his skinny chest. 

_Amen to that_ , Eugene wanted to say, but held his tongue. “Well this one’s different.” He said instead, and stroked at the soft skin at Snafu’s temple. “‘S got the two of us together in it this time.”

“It ain’t enough.” Snafu said, voice so hard and miserable that Eugene almost let himself be carried away into being upset for a second. They were both still sprawled across the bed, the twisted up sheets evidence of their earlier activities. It seemed lifetimes ago. If Eugene concentrated hard enough, both it and the war swum tandem in his memories. He wondered what that meant for him, for the both of them, this lack of time, lack of past, lack of future. The year ahead stretched amorphous in front of him, and even after all their talking, he still felt incredibly out of step with Snafu’s thoughts. It wasn’t a new feeling: it wasn’t as though Snafu’s odd train of thought was simple to follow in the first place. And now, gripped by the past as he was, Eugene knew he wasn’t going to draw any sense from him. 

“You don’t mean that.” He settled on, and Snafu just mumbled something unintelligible into Eugene’s skin. “Do you?” The fear, creeping in again, that their conversation wasn’t quite done.

Snafu was silent for a long time, and then his hand came to pinch Eugene’s side, a teasing little gesture that didn’t match the melancholy set of what little of his face Eugene could see. “Not really.” He murmured. “‘S easier to get mad than anything else.”

“Your fatal flaw.” Eugene said, stroking a thumb over the rise of Snafu’s cheekbone as he watched a self deprecating smile lift the corner of his mouth. 

The fireworks were still banging and popping outside of their apartment, and it was only when Eugene allowed himself and Snafu a few fingers of scotch and a cigarette did Snafu manage to gather himself together a little.

“Cheers.” He said, morose, cross-legged on the bed as he extended his glass to tap against the base of Eugene’s. The cat, allowed up on the bed as a treat more for Snafu than him, clawed at the bedsheet loudly as he watched. 

“This the best New Year celebration you had?” Eugene asked, semi-jokingly, and Snafu just grinned to himself as he knocked his scotch back. 

“Ain’t a New Year without a little fear.” He said, a thin vein of that old bravado in his voice. His smile dipped slightly as he seemed to ruminate on that, and Eugene just extended a hand, silent, to grasp a hold of Snafu’s fingers. Snafu met his eyes, something veiled and vulnerable there. 

“Remember what you used to say ‘bout keepin’ on?” Eugene asked, and Snafu’s gaze dropped to the empty tumbler in his hand. “What happened to that?”

“Gets tiring.” He murmured, setting his glass on the side table. His attention wandered, eyes on the cat as he continued, “Maybe it’s the flu but goddamn, I get tired sometimes, boo. ‘S a whole ‘nother thing to go to war, but living past twenty-two when you didn’t think you’d be is a bastard of a situation.” He touched the dime around his neck unconsciously, fingers finding their familiar paths over it. He met Eugene’s eyes. “Never thought I’d be in something like this with someone like you.”

There was a beat of silence, and then Eugene snorted, hung his head. “Same here.” He muttered. “Never would’ve of thought it, much less this good. Much less with you.”

“I always hoped.” Snafu said, and stole Eugene’s scotch from his unresisting hand. “Always loved you.” He cleared his throat, nodded to himself. “Always.”

“You did?” Eugene said, taken aback. Snafu shrugged one shoulder, eyes on the cat as he toyed with his paws. “Could’a fooled me. Thought you didn’t like me one bit for the longest time.”

“Got funny ways of showin’ it, I guess.” Snafu’s eyes were downcast, studiously not meeting Eugene’s gaze, and Eugene felt an odd pang of guilt in his chest.

“I didn’t mean it like that.” He said, tapping Snafu’s knee with his hand. “God knows I liked you too. Just thought you’d never even think about givin’ me the time of day.”

The cat batted at Snafu’s hand, claws out, and Snafu hissed as the claws sunk in the skin of his hand. “‘S alright.” He said, shooting Eugene a sidelong glance. His big, pale eyes were red-rimmed, the sickness and his panic earlier, the hollows of his already angular face deeper since before Christmas. He looked sweet and small, unwell, tired. So far flung from the mean Private who had so rudely seen Eugene off on his first day on Pavuvu. Sure, that same Snafu resurfaced often, but it was like an echo of some old thing, a memory. “It’s like that sometimes.” He continued, unaware of Eugene’s introspection. “‘S like,” He gestured, brow wrinkling. “Somebody’s always lookin’ in, the other one always lookin’ out.” He shrugged, and turned away to light a cigarette. “Ain’t nothin’ wrong with it. ‘S how love goes. The way I see it, one’s always gotta be more turned in than the other one.”

His statement was so surprisingly thoughtful, erudite in its own way, that Eugene found himself lost for words for a second. “Who’s who with us?” He asked, and Snafu smiled at that. 

“You’re lookin’ out.” He said, eyes soft on Eugene. “Always lookin’ out, boo. Eyes on some horizon I can’t even think about ‘cos I’m too busy lookin’ in on us.”

“Is that tiring?” Eugene asked, and Snafu took a drag from his cigarette before answering. The cat stretched between them, and Eugene scratched as his moth-eaten ears absently as he waited for Snafu to collect his thoughts. 

“Nah.” Snafu said, eventually. “Lovin’ you was always what was keepin’ me from getting all worn down. Still is.”

Eugene couldn’t find words to respond to that, as heavy the statement was. Snafu just smirked at him, a little bit of himself back in the gesture. He liked tripping Eugene up, leaving him speechless; he had always gotten a kick out of it and probably always would. 

“You wanna get breakfast tomorrow?” Eugene asked, finally, helplessly. His love for Snafu was blooming so big and consuming in his chest that his throat felt tight with it. Overwhelming. Giddying. He’d never been the person someone had endured things for before. “That place you like. The cafe.”

Snafu smiled then, a real smile, not those fakey half-smirks he loved to use. It lit his face up, as tired and sallow as it was, and Eugene couldn’t help but draw him into a kiss at the sight of it. Their lips met, Snafu’s hand coming to curve along Eugene’s jaw as he melted forward into the kiss. “Yeah.” He murmured, drawing away from Eugene’s mouth to speak. Lovesick, dog that he was, Eugene followed, stupidly, blindly. “Think I could manage that, sugar.” Snafu said, pressing the pad of his thumb to Eugene’s lips.

Under the press of Snafu’s thumb, Eugene’s lips split into a grin, and with a laugh he gathered Snafu’s wiry body into his chest, folded him in so close he knew there was no way he couldn’t be safe ever again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wanna thank everyone who has read this fic, left kudos, reblogged the posts on tumblr and left such sweet words in the tags and those left comments especially (the joy of a new inbox notif is REAL)!! a few times i got so discouraged with this thing (it's been in the works for over a year now, and i only started writing it again last november) because of school and work BUT it is all your kind words and support and enjoyment of this fic that kept me going with it!! thank you for reading, again, and i hope you enjoyed!! 
> 
> i just wanna say thank u to my kish for always.. ALWAYS..... cheering me on :^) !


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